Sito: An American Teenager and the City that Failed Him

by Laurence Ralph

Overview

AN IN THE MARGINS BOOK AWARD HONORARY TITLE 

A "profound", heart-wrenching story of violence, grief, and the American justice system, explored through the story of one teenager (Matthew Desmond, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Evicted).

In September of 2019, Luis Alberto Quiñonez—known as Sito— was shot to death as he sat in his car in the Mission District of San Francisco. He was nineteen. His killer, Julius Williams, was seventeen. It was the second time the teens had encountered one another. The first, five years before, also ended in tragedy, when Julius watched as his brother was stabbed to death by an acquaintance of Sito’s. The two murders merited a few local news stories, and then the rest of the world moved on. But for Laurence Ralph, the stepfather of Sito’s half-brother—who had dedicated much of his academic career to studying gang-affiliated youth—Sito’s murder forced him to revisit the subject in a profoundly different way.  

Written from Ralph's perspective as both a person enmeshed in Sito's family and an Ivy League professor and expert on the entanglement of class and violence, Sito is an intimate story with an message about the lived experience of urban danger and ultimately, grace.  

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538740330
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	02/18/2025
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Laurence Ralph is a professor of anthropology at Princeton University, where he is the director for the Center on Transnational Policing. Before that, he was a tenured professor at Harvard University. He is the author of Renegade Dreams and The Torture Letters. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey with his wife and daughter. 

Editorial Reviews

Ralph tells his story well. He avoids sentimentality. Nor does he pepper his prose with the kind of opaque language that so often dogs academic writing. … “Sito” is a readable, empathic portrayal of a Hispanic teenager whose promising life was cut short because of failures in the criminal justice system and violence in the streets.”—New York Times

"[T]he story is at once...a sociological academia, an account of a rapidly gentrifying San Francisco, and an intimate look into generations of a close-knit family pushing against the stronghold of gang violence...The book, Ralph's third, follows two other ambitious nonfiction works...but "Sito" is his most personal yet."—The San Francisco Chronicle

"With the gripping true story of Sito and Julius—two teenagers forever linked by trauma and an unjust system—this book gives voice to the stories that often go unheard."—In the Margins Book Awards

"[A] gut-punch personal narrative with broader societal implications." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Sito is a harrowing, impactful account of a teenager caught in a cycle of violence and the juvenile justice system that failed him."—BookPage, starred review

"Sito is Laurence Ralph's most intimate, most searching, and most liberated work yet. Following the murder of a teenage family member, Ralph explores this gutting loss through the eyes of fathers and mothers, brothers and friends. Moving seamlessly from living rooms to court rooms, he forces us to recognize that there are no easy answers when it comes to vengeance, healing, and justice. With depths beyond depths, this profound book is a memoir and a sociological analysis; it is a critique, a confession, and a prayer." —Matthew Desmond, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Evicted

"Laurence Ralph ruminates on gang violence and our decadent criminal legal system through the life and tragic murder of his 19-year-old loved one, Sito. The blend of intimacy and authority, of self-and-structural reflection, of despair and expectation make for a profoundly affecting and edifying book. Sito is a triumph." —Ibram X. Kendi, National Book award-winner and New York Times bestselling author

“With great care, skill, and nuance, acclaimed anthropologist Laurence Ralph tells the tragic story of nineteen-year-old Luis Alberto Quiñonez. Drawing on his pioneering research on race, policing, and violence, Ralph takes the reader on a powerful and moving journey that unveils the failures of the criminal justice system in the United States. While there is much to despair, Ralph leaves readers with a deep sense of hope—that the failures of the past can be corrected and that we can build a more just and equitable society where young people like Sito can survive and thrive.”—Keisha N. Blain, coeditor of the #1 New York Times bestseller Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619–2019

“Sito is an extraordinary story of murder, grief, revenge, and the possibility of healing.  With this beautifully written account, Laurence Ralph takes us to a place that is, at once, intimate and revealing.  He calls into question his own ideals and scholarly conclusions as he confronts his family’s loss and grief.  And, in the end with the Orishas guiding his tongue, he offers a prayer that we all need to hear.  Heartwrenchingly complex. Sito is a powerful and moving book.” —Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor at Princeton University

"SITO is both a deeply moving work of remembrance and a powerful indictment of our racist judicial system. Once again, Ralph proves that he is a brilliant ethnographer and expert storyteller. His sensitive prose gives us heart wrenching insight into a young life that ended too soon and a grieving family’s search for truth, justice, and forgiveness. This book sets a new standard for social science writing in the 21st century."—Jason De León, Author of Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling

"Ralph draws on family experiences and his research into justice-impacted youth to paint an honest, heartbreaking, and enraging picture of his 19-year-old family member Sito’s life and death."

—Booklist

"Through a heart-wrenching study of a youth’s murder, Ralph reveals a larger picture of social decay, despair, and violence."—Kirkus Reviews

"For these young men, there are rarely second chances. This ultimately is the lesson Laurence Ralph takes from Sito’s short life…. Sito invites us to regard the Sitos of the world with a bit less judgment and a good deal more humility.”

—New York Review of Books

From the Publisher

2023-09-28
A professor of anthropology delves into the violence and terror on the streets of San Francisco, where real solutions are elusive.

Ralph, the director of Princeton’s Center on Transnational Policing and author of Renegade Dreams and The Torture Letters, tries to find reasons for the increasing gang-related violence in San Francisco via a thorough examination of the death of a young man called Sito, a member of a family with which the author had a connection. Sito was 19 when he was killed, and the murderer was only 17. The motive was revenge for Sito’s peripheral involvement in the murder of the killer’s brother some years before. In his sociological investigation, the author finds a whirlpool of unstable families, conspiracy theories, dysfunctional legal systems, and gang violence with its endless cycles of retribution. Sito was trying to get his life back on course after a spell in juvenile detention, but it was a struggle. A high proportion of the men in this part of San Francisco have been incarcerated at some point, and Ralph traces the legacy of a host of psychological problems that have led to crime. Gang culture reaches into the jails, and a period of incarceration is effectively a badge of honor, so it is hard to see how the pattern can be broken. As a minor, Sito’s killer faces only a few years in juvenile detention, which hardly sounds like justice to Sito’s family. During this project, Ralph was forced to reassess his belief in a variety of liberal reforms, facing "the feeling that my ideals were betraying me.” In the end, he offers no concrete solutions, although he clings to hope and remains “sensitive to the reality that academic research has been—and can still be—exploitative.”

Through a heart-wrenching study of a youth’s murder, Ralph reveals a larger picture of social decay, despair, and violence.

Kirkus Reviews