On the “tres puntos” tattoo

First of all, let me say that I would not choose to get a get a tattoo for the simple reason that as a Christian I do believe my body is a living sacrifice to my God. (Same reason I choose not to smoke or take recreational drugs or other forms of “self harm”.) Some say the body is a temple for the worship of God, and things like “fornication” are forbidden along the same vein (1 Corinthians 6:18). Tattooing was also explicitly forbidden under Mosaic law (e.g. Leviticus 19:28); and scarification and self-flagellation were believed to occur as a result of being incited (or possessed) by unholy spirits, and in fact was a common practise in the worship of non-Judaic gods. All in all, the general Judaeo-Christian principle is that tattooing is a “bad” thing. I am Christian, and these are also my beliefs. Having said that, I emphasize that my beliefs apply only to me and only I can be judged by them by a being I call God. My second comment is redundant but and that is to say that I too sometimes do things that are contrary to my beliefs. Which reminds me of that tattoo a lot of gang members get that says “Only God can judge me”. Solo Dios me puede juzgar.


OK, the three dots (aka “tres puntos”) tattoo. First I heard of the tres puntos tattoo was back in high school when I was around 14. Tres Puntos was a fictional Latino gang from the movie “Blood in, Blood out” (also known as “Bound by Honor” in the US). They were the rival gang to Vatos Locos, another fictional Latino gang, and were generally thought to be weaker than the VL gang. In all, Tres Puntos were thought of as losers despite perhaps being more powerful in terms of street gangs.

Next I heard of tres puntos is again based on another movie, “Mi Vida Loca”. Similar to Blood in Blood out in that it dealt with Latino street gangs in L.A., but here the main characters are female. One of the leads in the story has a tres puntos tattoo at the temple, near the corner of her eye. Tres puntos = Mi vida loca, or generally just what life is like if you’re Latin (and living in the US, I suppose).


Urbandictionary.com defines the tres puntos tattoo as “A tattoo many Latinos get representing their culture and pride in being Latino”. (Read the definition, urbandictionary is always really funny.) The tres puntos tattoo, however, is particularly popular amongst Latino gangs. Largely it signifies the three fates of gang life: the hospital, the cemetery, or prison. So on the one hand the tres puntos tattoo is about pride in being Latin, and on the other hand it’s about all the negative consequences of being Latin... and being in a gang. I emphasize the latter part of that statement because a lot of people who are Latin, and take pride in being so, are disappointed in the association that is made between being Latin and being a “thug”. And of course, not all Latinos are violent gang members, in the same way not all Latinos with a tres puntos tattoo are part of these gangs.


The three dots tattoo are also not exclusively used by Latinos. I recently read a blog about this and the three dots tattoo have also been used by Russian, Turkish, French, German, and Asian groups (albeit mostly members of criminal organisations). Sailors and the homeless have attached particular protective properties to the dots, offering hope and protection from the evils they could come under. The concluding point of most of what I’ve read to date is that it is often up to the wearer of the dots to define their significance.


And now to my dots. Yes, I’m Latin. Yes, nobody forced this on me. Let me tell you a story. One day I was watching a documentary on prison gangs and how one the ways they use to establish their identity, their membership to what comes to be a pseudofamily while in prison, is gang tattoos. Different tattoos are associated with different gangs. Now what interested me about this (from a visual arts point of view) is how these guys were getting such elaborate and large tattoos engraved on them while in prison. What instruments were they using? How painful was it? Were the risks they were taking (infection, etc.) really considered less than what they could gain from it? I could understand this last point because at times anything seems worth a feeling of belonging, of camaraderie. Anyhow, I got the point of “how?” stuck in my mind. 


One day I was at work about to suture someone’s wound and I started thinking to myself that perhaps infiltrating ink directly into the skin the way someone infiltrated local anaesthetic would have the same effect as getting a tattoo with a proper tattoo gun or even with a needle alone (as I presume they use in prison). I raised the point with several colleagues (interns, I should specify) and the conclusion came to be: 1) prisoners prick themselves with a lone needle and some ink to create their tattoos, 2) yes, infiltrating ink will have the same effect, and 3) I should try it. And so, I came to listen to all three conclusions. I had Indian ink at home that I use for my drawings and I collected the syringe and needle from work. Guess what? It worked! Unfortunately it worked – and it’s permanent. I went for a tres puntos tattoos because, well, I’m Latin, and secondly, because I didn’t believe the other two dots would work. Oh yes, they worked too. And now I have a tres puntos tattoo :(


Solo Dios me puede juzgar.