Getting Inked is a Tradition With Latinos

national hispanic newsBy John Rosales, Hispanic Link News Service

My tio Lalo was proud of the Jesus portrait tattooed across his chest. He also had the Virgen strategically scratched on his left arm, where her colored garments and rosary beads hid needle marks left from shooting heroin.

Another tio, Oscar, proudly wore the insignia of the U.S. Navy on his forearm. These tios were my introduction to the ancient art of tattooing. It was the 1960s. Though still in grade school, I knew tattoos were taboo.

The only tattoo parlor I knew in San Antonio was on the seedy side of town. It shared a rundown city block with a liquor store and strip club. When one of my tios told me the ink-scarring procedure “hurt like hell,” I decided tattoos were not for me.

While tattoo parlors are now located in pristine suburban malls and the body art business is booming, I am not swayed. Cool tattoo magazines, books, blogs and reality television shows such as “Miami Ink” do not make the procedure less painful. The many accountants, teachers and soccer moms who have joined outlaw bikers and prison inmates in marking their bodies does not soften in my mind the image of the menacing rotary tattoo machine. It spins and wails as ink-filled oscillating needles drill under two layers of fresh flesh. Blood spills. Skin swells.

The horror! “It felt as though someone was cutting my skin and burning it with a match at the same time,” a friend told me. He has several black lightening bolts inscribed across his left rib cage.

Like my tios, Latinos have never minded the pain or stigma of tattooing. We’ve adorned our bodies for centuries: from ancestors like the Aztecs, Incas and Mayans – who were also into scarring and piercing  to more contemporary cultural tribes like zoot-suiters, pachucos, lowriders, military and law enforcement officials.

A 2010 study by the Pew Research Center found that a third of U.S. males age 18 to 25 have at least one tattoo, as do about 40 percent ages 26 to 40.

Latinos no doubt have multiple groupings and endless iterations of barb-wired biceps, spider-webbed elbows, full-back Virgins of Guadalupe, portraits of Che Guevara or Emiliano Zapata, among other embellishments.

All and good. I’ve heard that tattoo artists don’t use numbing cream because it can smudge the ink. That, together with the needle puncturing your skin up to 3,000 times per minute, translates into a world of dolor. Tattoo removal hurts even more through surgery, abrasion or lasers. It’s not cheap and it leaves a scar. A 2008 Harris poll found that 16 percent of tattooed adults regretted getting inked.

The regret likely wasn’t because of an infection. According to dermatologists, tattooing is generally safe. This may account for its trendiness, especially among professional athletes and entertainers. Enrique Iglesias makes tats sexy. The multi-colored “full sleeves” on the arms of basketball players and Mexican wrestlers gives tattooing a macho touch. The bodies of some Latino rappers are a swirl of adornment. This riot of images seems retro and fashion-forward at once.

And who knows how many of our neighbors have a Day of the Dead skull etched in a private place? Attend one of the 40 or so tattoo conventions nationwide and you will probably see Latinos spying the latest designs.

Tattoos are powerful. Aesthetic. Ostensibly permanent. They boldly express an indelible identity of self. They can unite disparate cultures as easily as distinguish ordinary people from everyone else on the planet.

Like many Latinos, my tios were proud of their tattoos. If the drilling of ink into the dermis layer of skin via needles ever becomes painless, I might get one, too. Until then, my skin remains a blank canvas.

This article was originally published in Hispanic Link News Service.

 John Rosales, a native of San Antonio, Texas, lives in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at jrosales@nea.org.

[Photo courtesy of Hispanic Link News Service]

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