Erasing the Past : Irvine Institute’s Lasers Help Ex-Gang Members Lose Tattoos--and Gain Respect

From one knuckle to the other, the tattoo had reflected his mood at the time. It spelled HATE in crude black lettering on his left hand, and the former skinhead from Newport Beach recalls that a couple of years ago, it was an appropriate four-letter word.

“I ran away that day. I had a disagreement at home about how I was always in trouble, so I just walked out,” said Jesse, now 16, who asked that his last name not be used. “This guy had a tattoo gun, and I talked him into it. I kept saying, “just give it to me, just give it to me, I don’t care.”

The hate is gone from his knuckles now, and Jesse says, from his heart. Alone in his room in Orange County Juvenile Hall last summer, the teen-ager penned a letter to Irvine’s Beckman Laser Institute after hearing about a tattoo removal program to help former gang members make a fresh start.

“I am 14 years old and have a lot of years ahead of me,” he wrote. “I think that if I have a tattoo that says ‘hate’ on my fingers I’ll probably have a rough time in my life. . . . I want people to think of me as a good kid, someone they could trust.”

After applying for and receiving financial assistance through the program, Jesse’s left hand bears only a faded pink reminder of his troubled past.

“I’m glad people don’t even see the scars,” said Jesse, who now lives in Seattle with his father. “I remember that my mom really cried when she first saw them. And later, we would be laughing, and having a good time, and she would look at my hand and turn sad. I’m glad it’s gone.”

In the two years since the program started, 27 former gang members have had tattoos removed and 100 are now undergoing treatment, said program director Anne Rosse. Acceptance is based on need.

Recently, fund-raising problems almost ended the Beckman program, which was among those labeled as “indigent care,” she said. But after a survey triggered emotional pleas from the ex-gang members who had finished the procedure, clinic administrators made cutbacks elsewhere. Doctors donated their time, and directors trimmed their working budgets, allowing the Treatment Assistance Fund to remain at the Irvine facility.

“We were thrilled when we saw the responses (to the survey),” Rosse said. “Not only were we helping with employment, but we were helping with their self-esteem. That’s what struck me the most.

“They gave much more detailed answers than we expected,” Rosse said, adding that some of the former gang members wrote pages about how the removal had gotten them jobs, boosted their morale and generally improved their lives.

There were also poignant letters that came with applications.

“I know I’ve made mistakes in the past, and now I’m paying greatly for them,” read one letter, written by an 18-year-old mother who often hid her tattoos beneath bandages while working at a doctor’s office.

“There’s been times when I’m speaking to a patient and as soon as they see my tattoo they look away and go ask (someone else) the same question they asked me. They think I’m not capable of answering their questions. This has slowly lowered my self-esteem and hopes that I had when I started working there.”

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The district attorney’s office estimates that there are 16,000 youths in Orange County gangs, a majority of whom have homemade tattoos with their gang affiliations or nicknames on their hands, faces and necks. The “tattoo guns” consist of a junkyard of items that can include a guitar string for a needle, a portable cassette player motor and India ink.

Like those of Jesse and several others seeking laser treatment, the marks on “Khanh’s” hands were also the products of a back-alley tattoo gun.

He remembers that when he was stealing cars and running from his probation officer in Santa Ana, the faded green writing on his wrists and fingers were a source of pride--the kind that comes with hanging with a gang. It wasn’t until he quit that life that the letters and symbols spelled nothing but danger.

“When I stopped playing with the gang, I got into a lot of fights. They all want to fight you when they see the tattoos all over your hands. I got tired of getting into trouble.”

Khanh, which is not his real name, is trying to erase the memory of his crime-filled childhood. He goes to school, shows up for work at a local pizza parlor and says he feels good about himself for the first time in a long while.

“People don’t look down on me anymore,” says Khanh, who still has a few more laser treatments before the brands vanish for good. “When you play with the gangs, it only means trouble. I’m trying to be good. I’m trying to change.”

Changing isn’t as simple as taking off the tattoos. Khanh’s Vietnamese American family moved him to the El Toro area and away from the gangs and drugs that plagued his old Santa Ana neighborhood.

“I don’t want them to find me,” he said about his former gang members. “I don’t need trouble.”

Khanh’s mother, who keeps a watchful eye over her son these days, said during an interview in the family’s living room that she is proud of her son. “We are happy now,” she said. “He is a good boy now, and that makes us happy.”

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Depending on the size of the tattoo, doctors say, it can take up to a dozen treatments to eradicate it. Homemade gang insignias and symbols are the easiest to erase, taking just five or six treatments. The 15-minute laser treatments cost up to $400.

At the Beckman Laser Institute, they use either the ruby laser or the Nd:YAG laser which were “Q-switched,” or adapted for tattoo removal, according to nurse director Joyce Zeiler. The ruby laser was first developed in the 1960s and gets its name from the crystal it uses. The Nd:YAG is a newer laser that Beckman recently began using.

Before laser treatment, tattoos were either removed by sanding off (dermabrasion) or cutting out (excision), Zeiler said. Both treatments were very painful and left scars.

In both the ruby and YAG procedures, the laser directs its beam of light briefly at the tattoo. It’s then absorbed by the pigment of the tattoo until the tattoo pops and breaks into smaller pieces that the skin absorbs.

Karen Benik, one of the doctors credited with keeping the program alive at Beckman by donating her services, says the work is gratifying.

“I remember this very angry young man who came in. He had the tattoos on his face and neck. And over the course of a year, he really changed. He was friendly. It was like an obvious symbol had been taken off of him.”

After Gabriela’s first treatment to remove nicknames and lettering acquired while hanging with a gang in Anaheim, the 17-year-old student admitted sweetly that “it hurt a little bit.” But it took the birth her son, Matthew, to realize how much pain the gang lifestyle was causing.

“When my child grows up, I don’t want him to make the same mistakes I made. I want his life to be different.”

Although Gabriela, who asked that her last name not be used, went to school to be a medical assistant and held a job this summer, people still see a gang member when her tattoos catch their eye.

“I’m embarrassed. I’m ashamed that they’re on me. When I get them off, people won’t give me faces.”

Gabriela goes back in six weeks for her second treatment, and the tattoos should be gone after her third laser procedure.

“I’ll be glad when they’re gone. A lot of my friends’ moms won’t let them go out with me. They would look at my tattoos. I just want them gone.”