POST 10 : TATTOOS & GANGS

Is very well known that in todays society, especially between the young people, is more and more attractive to be as lawbreaker as possible. Maybe these people don't want or are not able to live in this way of life, but it just have an interesting aspects that catch the eye of the youth.

Why do you think more and more people wear tattoos (regardless of whether they belong to gangs or not)?

Presonally speaking, at first sight, I think that tattoos are very attractive to people because it's a way, first of all, to represent their thoughts but as well another way of rebelion and individuality, something that people are looking for since the beginning of the world. To do not belong to a group makes people think they are original and special. Tattoos are one of those ways to leave this groups to join others. But actually, at the end, everyone keep having the same tattoos so we don't know who becomes, then, a rulebreaker, breaking the walls of standardisation and becoming really unique. Maybe before but in any case, nowadays, I don't think we should relate tattoos with gang street bands because even old people (who should not be in favor of these kind of actions) have sometimes some tattoos.

Why do young people join gangs? 

As we have already said, people are constantly trying to be different, or to belong to some groups and not to others. In this phase where you are young and you don't know what you want to be, and what to do with your future, young people, might have the necesity to join a group where they will be accepted. Gangs may open their doors to those guys and show them a world which is not true at all, they promise them things that will never happen and a life they will never reach, just because this not the right way to do it. Those young people obnubilated by the shinning world they "can" reach, and in their situations, where they are totally lost, they will join this kind of corporations without a thought.

What link can you see between both topics and the notion of power?

Maybe the posibility of a person to change his body the way that person wants could be a kind of power; They have power on them, but on the others as well because, as far as I'm concerned, I think that doing what you want with your body do not let the others to tell you what to do, nobody can't say to do not put ink in your skin, because your decision, so in that way your are prohibing other people to do what they want to do. On the other hand, we have the gangs, I truely think that the manipulation that young people suffer by these kind of groups is an incredible form of power, because as it was said in the Newsweek, to leave a gang is extremely difficult. And I think it's because they use things to retain people, as they can't leave these groups, like family threats and these kind of staff that could make the manipulated people be affread of leaving these gangs.

To put it in a nutshell, I, personally speaking, think that tattoos do not have anymore the same image that thay once had. Now, even if I think we should evolve much more in tattoos mindset, we are in front of a era much more permissive in the tattoos topic.

POST 9: The Draw of 'Dead Town' - A Newsweek article (February 16, 2009) + GANGLAND Video

Go there for a full version of the Newsweek article given out in class.

Questions:

1. Gabriel Hinojos is an ex-con who was, in 2009, trying to redeem himself for his acts in the past "Getting out of a street gang in L.A.". He used to be a street gang in L.A., in Florencia 13, that has commited some misdemeanors and wants to change his lifestyle "is about like getting a tattoo removed". He was in the prison and he just wants to live his life like a normal person "Gabriel became a kind of poster child for leaving behinf the gang life.".

2. " 'Ya 'Stuvo' , spanish slang for "that's enough, I'm done with that." " It is the tattoo removal center where Gabriel Hinojos goes to remove his tattoos. Is almost known by everybody that tattoos are for life, once you made one is very difficult to remove it. Well, it could be like an image of the thoughts of people having tattoos and wanting to remove them. With the setence "Ya estuvo" the pacient could mean that another life begins and it is because of the tattoo remove.

3. The "black teardrops" are the tattoos that the criminals do when they murder someone or a prison stint "Each one can stand for a stint in prison or a person killed.". It's also called "black" because the ink used is the black one, it's tattoed below the eye, and they do it each time they do what we have just explained before.

4. Gabriel Hinojos went several times to " 'Ya'Stuvo' " center. He commited a lot of crimes so he should have the body full of tattoos. Those therapies are not easy to do and of course not short. It's extremely painful, " "You know when you're cooking and the oil hits you? It feels like that, over and over." ".

5. "Getting out of a street gang in L.A. is about like getting a tattoo removed: slow, painful, scarring." This looks like a very difficult and hard work to manage to do, and personally speaking, I think that it must more difficult to clean your past than leave those street gangs.

6. Actually I don't really think so, it is said that, "But escaping the pull of gang life is extremely difficult." and of course, what make us assure that it's impossible for some people to do it "a gang banger can never leave a really brutal gang like Mara Salvatrucha 13.".

7. Gabriel was one of those cases. He should have commited a lot of crimes compared to a normal person, but not as many as Mara Salvatrucha, for example. He just had to go to prison and redeem their sins.

8. Gabriel is saying that it is almost impossible to leave this kind of gangs. He is, as well saying that is even more difficult, almost a labour of Hercules far beyond a normal person, to leave the past and get introduced into the society like a normal citizen. People will judge you because of your past and not because of your present acts, what it is totaly normal after what you did.

9. Even if it's difficult to get reintroduced to society, their are some exception... Gabriel was one of those. He aparently became a model of what criminals should do to get intouched  again with society. But, as always, everyone returns to its origins and that's what this article explains at the end. Actually and as far as I am concerned, I think they give a very simplistic, I think is enough suffering to be trapped in a jail for some mounths or even a week. Do not knowing what's happening to your family. And as we already said, life after criminal acts is really difficult no one will want to help you because they will have a preconcieved image of you, they have excuses, but not everybody is identical. I think, in his case, Gabriel did not have another alternative that to come back to jail, it was know like his new house and the "real world" seamed to him like foreign.

10. In this photograph we can see who we could think is Gabriel Hinojos. He is getting a neck tattoo removed in 'Ya Stuvo center. We can feel his pain during the session, a pain that must be liberating like the ancient greeks used to say.