Who is Gunnar Kaufman from The White Boy Shuffle and what is their importance?

Gunnar is the narrator of The White Boy Shuffle. He tells the reader in the Prologue that the remaining text is his memoirs. He begins with an outrageous and hilarious account of his male ancestors. When the reader first meets Gunnar, he is an elementary student at a predominantly white school in Santa Monica, California where multicultural issues pervade every facet of the curriculum.