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In the world of Mexican gangs and drug cartels, a tattoo of a clown or joker-like figure means you are an individual without fear, and are willing to escalate violence to brutal, bloody heights.
Members of certain criminal gangs and mafia groups in and out of prison carry tattoos imbued with highly specific meanings. These tattoos and their meanings vary from group to group, as every gang has its own ‘tattoo language’, so to speak.
Mexican Mafia symbols include images of a black hand. The gang's primary symbol, which is often used in tattoos by members, is the national symbol of Mexico (eagle and a snake) atop a flaming circle over crossed knives.
Latino Gang Tattoos. Tattoos are an excellent tool for law enforcement and corrections officers to use to identify known or suspected gang members. This gallery includes examples of tattoos worn by predominanly Latino gangs such as the Mexican Mafia, MS-13, and the Latin Kings.
With a history that includes such radicals as Francisco Madero and Emiliano Zapata, it’s no wonder that from the Mexican Revolution to the Pachuco culture of the early 1940’s, and beyond, there was a huge influence from sociopolitical artworks and actions into modern Chicano tattooing.
Their primarily Mexican-American clientele, male and female, wanted tattoos that were done in "la pinta" (prison) with fine lines and black and gray shading.
Back in those days, there were the mainstream, “thick lined” and “cartoonish” tattoos that hardly anyone was getting, and the thin-line black and gray Chicano tattoos that everyone in Negrete’s community seemed to have.
