The Draw of 'Dead Town' - A Newsweek article (February 16, 2009)

Newsweek Article



I) Gabriel Hinojos used to be member of Florencia 13, on of the most important gangs in Los Angeles. He has belonged there for many years, but still now he has decided to leave behind his lifestyle of crime and misdemeanor by getting out of his street gang, which implies getting all his tatoos removed (as shown in the picture). Now, Gabriel has become "a kind of poster child for leaving behind the gang life".

II) "Ya 'Stuvo" is the tattoo removal center in which Gabriel Hinojos is getting his street gang tattoos eraised from his skin through what he describes as a very painful process. The name, "spanish slang for "that's enough, I'm done with that"" is symbolical, since people usually get their tattos removed when they are ready to leave behind whatever the tattoo means to them, when they feel they are done whith them  (as tattoos itselves often represent something else, something deeper that what is shown and that only few people can fully understand). 

III) In this article, "Black teardrops" refears to the black, tear-shaped tattoo street gangsters get everytime their either kill someone or everytime they are imprisonned. Gabriel Hinojos seems to have several of them, as they have to be removed from the skin under his eye, which seems extremely painful to him. Black teardrops are something street gangsters feel extremely proud of, since they are public demonstrations of how dangerous they can be, of the success they have achieved as gangsters. They get this tattoo on their face so it's easier for them to show-off. 


IV) The fact that Gabriel Hinojos has to visit Ya 'Stuvo more than 45 times in order to get all his tattoos removed (since we assume there are still many visits left before the process is finally done) implies that his body must be, indeed, completely inked since it's taking so long for him to get them eraised. That means he must have been very found of his gang and probably comitted huge crimes several times. Also, it means he is perseverant in his purpose of leaving behind his life as a gangbanger, since he is strong enough to attend more than 45 sessions of tattoo removing. 


V) Getting out of a street gang in L.A isn't easy at all. In fact, the article describes it through a comparison to the process of getting your tattoo removed: "slow, painful, scarring" (line 17).

VI) It is not always possible, as some street gangs doesn't allow their members to leave at all. The text explains, "In street lore, a gang banger can never a really brutal gang like Mara Salvatrucha13" (line 17).

VII) Few street gangs allow their members to leave, and even those that do make people go through a lot, which makes it extremely hard for anyone to ever leave a street gang. A gang banger can only exit his street gang if he has "done the work", which implies comitting some kind of crime and misdemeanor (the gravity of the crimes they force you to commit depends on how aggressive the gang is, I suppose). Most of the time, people have also to serve time in prison. 

VIII) "Escaping the pull of gang life is extremely difficult" means that, once you have belonged to a street gang, your mindset and your lifestyle are so used to it that you can barely imagine your life without everything that implies belonging to a street gang: human decay, social misbehavior and a criminal way of thinking are now so rooted in your person, they almost define your whole identity and now Gabriel can't even imagine life out of his street gang, which makes it really hard for him to build his life up again. He feels the constant need to drive back to his neighbourhood. 


IX) Now Gabriel has presomptly left behind his life as a member of a street gang, government wants him to become a "poster child", an example of good behavior so it can inspire other yougsters to follow the right social path, and the fact that he is invited to sip white wine at the White House with former first lady Laura Bush (which is supposed to be a great honour, a huge condecoration) is meant to show gangsters what awaits them once they leave their life of misdemeanor behind. The last sentence, though , proves that all the efforts government made to show Gabriel as a good example miserabily failed because few months later he had completely forgotten his will to move on and got imprissoned again.

X) This photograph shows Gabriel Hinojos getting his tattoos removed from his skin by a person whose face is not shown. He is wearing sunglasses, so we cannot really see his whole face (which keeps some kind of mistery that shows he belongs to a hidden, a dark part of our society) but his mouth is twisted and we can see he's going though a painful moment. Anthough a part of his skin is actually clean, inkless, we can see how most of his body is still completely covered in tattoos so we can imagine how long the process is going to be, and how much suffering Gabriel is going to have to go though before it's done, and that's how it illustrates this article. This pic is a metaphor of the pain leaving a street gang implies.