April 19 - 25, 2007 By Emmily Bristol
La vida normal
Getting out of gang life is more than skin deep, but it’s a good place to startAt one time in her life, the three dots tattooed on Julissa Romero’s left elbow and the No. 13 on her right pinkie meant she was a part of the crew who ran her North Las Vegas neighborhood. But now, half her lifetime away from those days, the 28-year-old valley native says the tattoos are just a daily reminder of where she went wrong in her teen years.
“We were influenced by [the gang]. We hung out with that crowd,” Romero says of the years she spent at Rancho High School before her family moved to a better neighborhood and she escaped becoming a full member of a gang.
Today Romero looks back at that time with embarrassment, and the homemade tattoos she got during those days have been a brand she can’t shake.
“It’s being marked by a past I don’t want to remember anymore,” Romero says.
While the three dots on her elbow, a symbol of “my crazy life,” can easily be covered by a long-sleeved shirt, Romero has had to learn how to avoid using her hands in public, and wears large rings to cover the No. 13 on her pinkie and a tattoo of her name on her ring finger. And the tattoos have caused difficulties in more than just social circumstances. There have been times the ink has cost her jobs in interviews.
“It creates barriers, especially when you’re ready to move on,” says Melvin Ennis, a specialist with the Clark County gang intervention program.
Ennis says the point of many gang tattoos is to be highly visible, especially in Hispanic neighborhoods such as the one Romero left in her teens. Gang tattoos are often done with homemade techniques and tools, and placed on the face, hands and arms. Popular images include specific gang affiliations, memorial tattoos and marking of kills such as by the well-known teardrops placed on the face.
But the end is drawing near for Romero’s tattoos. She’s the first to take advantage of an offer by locally owned Professional Permanent Cosmetics (sm) to remove gang tattoos for free through Sept. 1. Romero had her first session on April 11, and will go back for one or more sessions in May to complete the job. For Romero it is a liberation from a past that has haunted her and held her back in her new career as an aesthetician. And she has another reason to remove the old ink: her children. Her oldest son, who is 9, has started asking her what her tattoos mean.
“He asks me, ‘Mom, what is that?’” the mother of four says. “I don’t want to have that sort of influence [on my kids].”
And perhaps motherhood is what Romero and Professional Permanent Cosmetics (sm) owner Mary Arnold have in common. While she has no personal experience with gangs, Arnold says she decided to offer the free gang tattoo removal after she saw how those kinds of tattoos can have a lasting impact on people’s lives when she was a nurse.
“It is a nice thing we can do to help people who were in a gang,” Arnold says. “I think gangs affect all of us [in a community].”
So far Romero is the first to take advantage of the offer, but Arnold is hopeful there will be more. In fact, she says she may extend the offer deadline if she gets a high demand for gang tattoo removal.
For his part, Ennis has been working to get the county a tattoo-removal machine for 15 years. Unfortunately, the machines and the time of those qualified to use them is expensive. And since it usually takes more than one session to remove a tattoo, sometimes people “flake out,” Ennis says.
“It takes a strong commitment to get that tattoo off,” Ennis says. “I think counseling needs to go with the removal. They’re going through something. It’s a process. It’s emotional. You made a lifetime pact to be with that gang and now you’re leaving it behind. … You have to bury that tattoo.”
Romero says she’s happy to be leaving the last vestiges of her old life behind. She’s engaged and launching her new career and doesn’t want to continue to be judged by the mistakes of her past.”
“Clients see my hands and then they ask,” Romero says. “It’s embarrassing to have to explain it all the time and being judged by it.”
Professional Permanent Cosmetics (sm) can be contacted at 360-4260.
Emmily Bristol is a City Life staff writer. She can be reached at 871-6780 ext. 344 or ebristol@lvcitylife.com.
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