Practitioner Spotlight: Dr. Esther Hio-Tong Castillo

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Dr. Esther Hio-Tong Castillo is the Director of Racial Equity, Storytelling, and Community Impact for the City of Philadelphia. Previously, she served as the Programs Manager for the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Temple University in 2017. Benny Witkovsky interviewed Dr. Castillo about her work in Philadelphia earlier this spring. Thanks for speaking with us! 

Tell me about the work you have done in Philadelphia with the Asian community.

The first time that I worked directly with the Asian community in Philadelphia was when I volunteered as a Census trainer in Chinatown. In late 2019, the City of Philadelphia was recruiting multilingual trainers to ensure that everyone filled out the census, including immigrants and refugees. At that time, I gave a training presentation in Cantonese to about 100 older residents in Chinatown. To my surprise, they were very enthusiastic about filling out the census. Through this experience, I connected with the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation (PCDC), my former employer. They asked me if I would be willing to lead a program that aims to promote mental health and wellness in the Chinese immigrant community because they just received a grant from the Scattergood Foundation. I said yes. 

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City Spotlight: Landlord Strategies for Avoiding Evictions in Philadelphia

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By Melody L. Boyd (SUNY Brockport) and John Balzarini (Delaware State University)

If it’s been a while since you’ve been to Philadelphia, you’ll notice some shimmering additions to the skyline when you arrive for ASA 2023. You’ll likely need to reroute a block or two to navigate around scaffolding and closed streets as you head to dinner after a day of conferencing. You may want to bring a pair of ear plugs to minimize the construction noise as you move around the city. While Gritty was unveiled in 2018 as the Flyers mascot, the city has gotten quite a bit shinier and new in recent years. Of course, as sociologists we know that shiny and new—which on the surface may seem attractive—actually corresponds with increased inequality as competition for housing intensifies. In the context of these changes throughout the city we conducted research looking at the attitudes, perspectives, and experiences of one of Philadelphia’s most important housing providers—landlords. In this article, we highlight some of our findings from this research, focusing on how landlords navigate evictions amidst an increasingly hot Philly housing market.

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Mentoring at ASA 2023

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The CUSS mentorship committee is organizing small-group mentoring meetings at the 2023 ASA conference. The meetings will be a chance for established and emerging scholars to meet and discuss research, career advice, work-life balance, and more. If you are interested in participating—as a mentor or a mentee—please complete this survey. We especially encourage the participation of established scholars. Mentoring is rewarding for all involved and helps support our section’s vibrant community. 

Thanks so much,

Brenden Beck, Emily Walton, and Jennifer Garfield-Abrams

Seeking Philly Newsletter Pieces

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Source https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Philadelphia_cityscape_BW_20150328.jpg

Does your scholarship or activism take place in Philadelphia? If so, the CUSS Newsletter Committee wants to feature your work in our next newsletter! Anyone interested in submitting a feature-length article (approximately 1,000-2,000 words) should contact Co-Editors Lora Phillips (lora.phillips@asu.edu) and Steven Schmidt (seschmid@uci.edu) by May 15 with a short (1-5 sentence) description of your proposed article. Final submissions will be due by July 1 in order to ensure inclusion in the summer newsletter.

Beyond Black Marginality: Expanding Our View of Black People & Places

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As part of our virtual panel series, City & Community is excited to host “Beyond Black Marginality: Expanding Our View of Black People & Places” on Monday, May 1, at 5:00PM (ET). Aimed at junior scholars (but inclusive of all), this panel series features topics within the journal’s scope in which more established scholars share their experiences and intellectual journeys with the intention of both guidance and information. See below for a description and information. 

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City & Community Webinar

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City & Community virtual webinar on R&Rs, 3/16/23, 6:30-8

“Great, but Now What? How to Handle R&Rs”

“We invite you to revise and resubmit this paper” are great words to read from journal. But they are only the start of what may be a long revision process. Aimed at early career scholars, this virtual information session is meant to offer some guidance on how to revise and resubmit papers for journals from the perspective of an editor. Richard Ocejo, editor of City & Community, will offer some common tendencies–effective and ineffective ones–in how authors handle R&Rs and tips for how to incorporate reviewers’ comments in your papers (especially when they conflict) and write effective response memos. While City & Community and urban sociology will serve as the main examples, the lessons will be universal. Scholars in other subfields are therefore welcome to attend.

Thursday, March 16, 6:30-8, on Zoom. 

Note: Registration is required and this event will not be recorded.

Email any questions to: cicojournal@gmail.com.  

Interview with John Gilderbloom, winner of the 2022 Robert and Helen Lynd Award for Lifetime Achievement

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Against the Odds: The Real Power of Science, Data, and Facts to Win Progressive Victories

John Hans Gilderbloom is a Professor in the Graduate Planning, Public Administra- tion, Public Health, and Urban Affairs program at the University of Louisville. Dr. Gilderbloom is considered one of the most influential figures in urban affairs with an emphasis on sustainability, housing, health and transportation. His fingerprints are all over cities throughout the world. As the winner of the 2022 Robert and Helen Lynd Award for Lifetime Achievement, Dr. Gilderbloom has graciously agreed to be interviewed for our newsletter. Thank you, John, and congratulations!

I am a gunshot survivor. I am grateful to be alive.  But I prefer to let the enemies of science know I have learned to thrive.  The gunshot resulted in a partial loss of eyesight and hearing, and balance issues.  I have post-traumatic stress disorder, despite years of therapy.  Before the shooting, The Nation magazine in May 1979 quoted a letter stating that powerful people in the real estate industry were going to “neutralize me” if I continued to advocate for renter rights.  I was told I would never survive, yet 43 years later I am thriving with energy, passion, joy, and love.  I persisted.  

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Interview with Albert Fu, winner of the 2022 CUSS Teaching Award

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Albert Fu is a Professor of Sociology at Kutztown University. As both an urban and environmental sociologist, his research examines the intersection between built and natural environments. Dr. Fu is also interested in how “culture” creates, defines, and controls space. At Kutztown, he regularly teaches Principles of Sociology, Sociological Imagination, Social Inequality, Urban Sociology, and Environmental Sociology. As the inaugural winner of the biannual CUSS Teaching Award, Steven Schmidt reached out to Dr. Fu to discuss his teaching, and we’ve included his responses below. Thanks for participating in our interview series!

Who (or what) inspired you to become a teacher? Did you have any classroom experiences earlier that influenced how you teach now? 

I have had so many great teachers (at all levels) over the years that have impacted my teaching. A story I often share with students is how my high school English teacher Mrs. Karen Harwood recommended that I be moved from the regular curriculum to the honors/advanced placement curriculum – despite not being a 4.0 student. In this way, Mrs. Harwood had a massive impact on my life, and I think it’s essential to pay it forward as an educator. It’s important to look out for creativity and curiosity beyond traditional grades. 

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Interview with Jessica Simes, co-winner of the 2022 Robert E. Park Book Award

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Jessica Simes was the co-winner of the 2022 Robert E. Park Book Award for her book, Punishing Places: The Geography of Mass Imprisonment. CUSS publication team member Kyle Galindez reached out to Jessica to discuss the genesis of her book and what is next for her research agenda. Thanks, Jessica, and congratulations again!

What were the main findings of your research?

Punishing Places addresses a fundamental question at the intersection of urban and punishment research: How do place-based disadvantages and residential segregation shape patterns of incarceration in the United States? While mass incarceration has mainly been theorized as the result of macro-level policies or micro-level discrimination, place is an under-appreciated meso-level mechanism of high imprisonment rates and racial disparities. To fill this gap, I apply spatial analysis to administrative records with unprecedented geographic detail that include all prison admissions in Massachusetts spanning 20 years. I contextualize this analysis with U.S. county-level jail and prison admissions data, as well as interview data. I leverage these data to expand our understanding of mass incarceration in three key ways. First, I demonstrate a historically new and nearly universal shift in the location of high incarceration rates from large urban areas to small cities, suburbs, and rural communities. Second, I show why mass incarceration must be conceptualized as a legacy of racial residential segregation in the U.S. I find remarkable consistency in Black and Latino neighborhood incarceration rates despite recent geographic shifts in prison admissions and emergent trends in incarceration rates within white neighborhoods. Finally, I argue that existing measures of mass incarceration fail to capture its broad consequences for community well-being and social inclusion; I thus reconceptualize it as a form of community loss, and draw from environmental science to define a concept of punishment vulnerability.

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