In September 2019, Luis Alberto Quiänonez – known as Sito – was shot as he sat in his car. 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 a death. Written by a member of Sito's family, an Ivy League professor and expert on the entanglement of class and violence, Sito explores the systemic issues around gang participation in San Francisco through the story of one teenager.
Sito is a readable, empathic portrayal of a Hispanic teenager whose promising life was cut short because of failures in the criminal justice system ... The trouble is that the book doesn’t go far enough. The assumption that "there is an innate difference" between a victim and his assailants "hinders our ability to understand urban violence," Ralph declares at the outset ... To demonstrate this premise in Sito, we would need to know more about Julius, Rashawn and Miguel, too ... Sito is no less honest without their voices, but it is less complete.
Moving, thoughtful ... Ralph blends his knowledge of Sito, his own memories of being a terrified boy from an immigrant family and his research into minority teens caught in an ineffectual justice system to create a harrowing account of Sito’s life.
