by Margarita Duran

A Cholo kissing a lady on the cheek was one of the designs Jose Acevedo had artistically tattooed on his back several years ago, when he was living a gangster's life.

Acevedo, 26, now works for the Second Chance tattoo removal program at ARECEN in San Francisco, the Central American refugee center. He helps run the program and is also a counselor there. Here is where he found help,trying to remove his tattoos and leave his past behind.

"I don't want tattoos anymore, period." That was a phase in his life he says he has changed. "We want a different appearance -- our identities remain the same, but we just want to be recognized as different persons. Sometimes we build on different characters along with that, and I guess that's where I'm at right now."

Jose first joined a gang when he was 13, and has been clean for about 9 years. Now he helps others from his community trying to do the same -- to leave the gangs, to leave that life style.

He says he first had to get "jumped in" to become a member of the gang. Some members of the gang counted for fourteen seconds, while others, beat him up. "If you survive it, you're in. If you don't then you get sent to the hospital."

Jose survived, and remained a member of 14th Street gang for some time. Later on he got involved in another gang, but this one got dissolved, he said. Many of the members were sent back to their native countries or were put in jail.

The 14th St. gang has been around for more than 50 years he said, and it has chapters in Los Angeles, San Francisco and throughout the United States.

His other tattoo was the gang number, "14," on the back of his ear. He says he wanted to put it on his neck or somewhere more visual, but many of his friends at that time had tattoos by their earlobes.

Jose's family never slept, he says. They worried that something tragic would happen to him. "My family lived in constant fear one time they even shot our house, because they wanted to kill us."

How did he get involved in the gang life? Jose says the decision stemmed from a resolution to honor his parents, who were murdered before years earlier.

"I do a lot of things now in dedication to them because I loved them a lot, and I still feel like they are alive," he says. "I never think that they are history."

A lot of the things that Jose does now are with a positive attitude, and done out of respect for his family, himself and to society, which he said he has taken so much from in the past.

He works for CARECEN as a youth counselor, serving youth that have been related with gangs.

He admits that tattoos give you an identity -- what you believe in, where you stand, what your life style is at that time. A lot of the kids that are served here have tattoos with gangs' codes, symbols or letters.

He had tattoos for 10 years and a lot of people asked him what they meant. But he didn't want to tell people that he was linked to gangs because he didn't want people to prejudge him.

Although having the number 14 on the back of his ear was something he was proud of at age 13, as young adult he is more proud of having it erased. "It is like closing a chapter," he says.