Sito

"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." 

“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.”

“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.” 

"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."

"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." 

"Compelling. . . It is impossible to read The Torture Letters without the nagging realization that right now, somewhere in the United States, a similar story is playing out in real time. This book matters."

"[A] deeply caring work. . . An essential primer on the roots of police violence."

"Ralph brings necessary light to the problem of police torture. A damning indictment of the senseless and seemingly unceasing violence committed by those charged with serving the public."

“Renegade Dreams is a tour de force―extremely well written and engaging, and replete with original insights. Once I began reading Ralph’s book I had a difficult time putting it down.  His field research is fascinating. And his explicit discussion of the interconnections of inner-city injury with government, community institutions, as well as how it is related to historical and social processes, is a major contribution."

“Although it lacks the easy narrative of many traditional ethnographies, this is precisely the book’s strength. There is no convenient valorisation of the ordinary extraordinariness of the lives portrayed here. Their dreams are shown to be chaotic, complex and contradictory. Just like life in ‘Eastwood.’”

"Astounding in its clarity and groundbreaking in its power, Renegade Dreams is a miraculous as the efforts of its all-American characters to remake life and invent a future without injury."