Removing the Stigma : Ex-Gang Members’ Tattoos Erased in Free Program Offered by Sherman Oaks Doctor

When plastic surgeon Karl Stein agreed in 1981 to do a few free tattoo removals for former San Fernando Valley street gang members, he hoped his effort would inspire doctors in other areas to volunteer their time to help teen-agers and young adults.

Since then, Stein’s offer has attracted gang members from as far away as San Bernardino and Santa Cruz. But, his efforts have inspired only two similar efforts to meet what he says is a growing demand.

Stein estimates he has removed tattoos from more than 400 patients from around the state at his Sherman Oaks practice since he agreed to treat several patients referred to him by a juvenile court judge and the Los Angeles County Medical Assn.

The idea was to enable youths and adults to escape the stigma of past gang affiliation, which is sometimes betrayed by tattoos.

However, no other plastic surgeons have volunteered their services in Los Angeles County, he said.

“Right now, it’s me. It’s one person. I’m hoping more plastic surgeons will be getting interested.”

Stein’s work has led to a free tattoo-removal service at Northridge Hospital. There, surgical residents in a family practice program remove tattoos from about 10 patients a week, a volume that has grown since the program was begun 18 months ago, according to Myron Greengold, director of the family practice program. At the Northridge institution, the service gives extra surgical experience to the young physicians, who remove only small tattoos.

Another public service tattoo removal program started in San Diego about two years ago. It charges $100 for surgery that might otherwise cost a patient more than $1,000.

Stein said national interest in the program has grown steadily since last year’s release of an award-winning Valley Cable documentary about his techniques for removing tattoos. The $15,000 to produce the video, “Un-Tattoo You,” was donated by the cable company.

Hundreds of Requests

Sandra Stein, the doctor’s wife and legal coordinator for the tattoo-removal program, said she has answered several hundred requests from schools, medical centers and civic organizations throughout the country for copies of the 15-minute video, which was nominated for an Emmy and received top honors from the National Cable Television Assn.

She said the documentary, which features teen-agers talking about the problems their tattoos have caused and a graphic sequence showing the removal of a design from a girl’s finger, was intended to “scare kids straight” by discouraging them from getting tattoos in the first place.

Roberta Weintraub, a Los Angeles school board member, and Superior Court Judge Irwin Nebron, who referred the first patients to Stein, also appear in the video to tell about students who could not move to a new area because of their gang tattoos and young adults who could not find work because of them.

“They don’t realize it’s forever, and they don’t realize the implications when they get older,” Sandra Stein said. “What we’re trying to tell them with this film is: ‘We don’t need your business.’ ”

Although the video has brought queries from several groups about how to start similar tattoo-removal programs in their own areas, the Steins said the need for the service is rapidly outpacing the capacity of volunteer plastic surgeons.

“We’ve got the Valley taken care of, but with the demand so great in areas like East L.A. there needs to be more out there,” Sandra Stein said.

“This started with a request from the courts to answer a need,” her husband said. “It has become a campaign.”

Release of the video and two Dear Abby columns about the Steins’ project have attracted desperate tattoo wearers to Stein’s program. The patients tell the couple that their markings, which often are self-inflicted, label them as troublemakers, even after they have started turning their lives around.

“When I was 18, it was hip. It was macho to have them,” said Patricia Hernandez, 24, who said she used a needle, thread and a bottle of India ink to scrawl the name of her Pacoima gang and her boyfriend’s name on her hands.

“But, when I was going to have my first child and I was getting started in college, I realized it wasn’t too good looking to have a mother-to-be with tattoos all over her.”

Moved to Avoid Gang

Hernandez said she moved to Panorama City to get away from Pacoima’s gang activity. She said the more “sophisticated crowd” she was meeting in classes at West Los Angeles Paramedical College was put off by the crudely drawn letters running the length of her hands.

“People who didn’t know gangs would ask me, ‘What was it for? Why did you do it?’ ” Hernandez said. “It was really terrible. I thought they were going to be on there forever.”

After Stein removed the tattoos two years ago, Hernandez said, teachers and other students accepted her more readily. She said her husband, who also was a member of her Pacoima gang, now wants to get rid of the elaborate tattoos on his arms, back and stomach.

“He wears long sleeves all the time. He’s embarrassed of them,” she said. “One day our little girl, she’s only 3, saw them and she asked him why he had written on himself . . . . He told her he was going to go wash them off and now he doesn’t like to be around her without sleeves.”

Rosie Galindo, 35, said more than social discomfort prompted her to seek Stein’s help. The name, dots, and flower she etched on her arms and face in the early 1970s have been holding her back professionally, she said.

“I’ve got my own cleaning business going, and I have to hide my arms when I first meet people,” Galindo said. “I need to get a good impression the first time they meet me because I know they have to rely on me, you know, because they have to do things like leave their houses open for me . . . . Tattoos, they’re more like the barrio where I grew up. People judge you on them.”

Two days before her surgery last week in Stein’s office, Galindo talked excitedly about her plans to pursue an office job once the more obvious tattoos are gone.

At the doctor’s office, however, Galindo became more subdued. After viewing “Un-Tattoo You,” she admitted quietly to being nervous.

Tattoo Removed

After anesthetizing Galindo’s hand, Stein used a felt-tip pen to draw a line around a 1-by-2-inch blotch of embedded ink between her thumb and forefinger. The area was tattooed twice, Galindo said, first to write a boyfriend’s name and later to blot it out. Using a scalpel, Stein sliced around the area, lifting off a darkened chunk of tissue containing the tattoo. He then pulled the skin of Galindo’s hand back together, stitching it closed. The surgery was over in less than an hour.

There will be a heavy scar where the black ink once was, but Galindo was not worried about it.

“I’m happy it’s gone. I don’t care about the scar,” Galindo said. “I know my clients will be happy.”

Stein sometimes uses a laser to “explode” the pigmentation of a tattoo so that it will be absorbed into the bloodstream. But he said laser removal, which requires use of donated facilities at Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills, often leaves a heavier, redder scar than conventional surgery, particularly on Latino patients.

Stein said that, if a tattoo is in a critical place such as the neck that makes the surgery dangerous, he will not operate.