Disappearing tattoos - June Wilkerson

National Catholic Reporter, April 27, 2001 by Arthur Jones

When tattoos are a problem, nun can help

Jeff Scott was 13 years old, on a weekend pass from a boys' home when his uncle was paroled from prison. The uncle, at home when the boy arrived, broke up a Walkman radio and converted it into a tattoo gun.

"He got us both high and did these," said Scott, indicating a right arm filled with tattoo scrollwork, "and this." On his left hand was a swastika with a lighting bolt through it. "I wear a glove when I work," he said, "so people don't see it. I clean carpets and this nice Jewish lady, a real sweetheart, she gave me a tip. She said keep it covered. I'm getting rid of it so people don't get offended by me."

Scott is having the tattoo erased at a Saturday morning clinic created by Sinsinawa, Wis., Dominican Sr. June Wilkerson at Providence Holy Cross Hospital here. Gradually, with a laser, the swastika is being zapped away.

Two dozen people waited their turn. Some were seated on the carpet in the corridor. Others stood. Still others were being prepared to be zapped.

Susana wants a small tattoo removed because she thinks it harms her image. After one laser treatment, the tattoo, above the bone at the base of the first finger on her left hand, is fainter. One or two more treatments will remove it.

Susana had the tattoo done originally, she said, because of "peer pressure, nine years ago." She was 15. "I'm having it removed because people automatically judge you," she said. "They think you're involved in a gang, and it's not so. It's degrading."

There's nothing cute or funky about what Wilkerson's established at the hospital. She got the idea from a Los Angeles police officer who saw it as a way of fighting gang violence. Tattoo removal is expensive, but Wilkerson's genius is that Hoffman -- and all the other Providence Holy Cross clients -- pay with community service.

She's making tattoo removal possible for people with no money to spare. These are people whose tattoos get in the way of employment, of relationships, of life itself. In extreme cases, they are tattoos that inspire hatred, sometimes enough to kill.

It's painful having the treatments. "Hurts like hell," said one man with bandage-swathed arms. But the signal the tattoos send can hurt even more. One of Wilkerson's 200-plus clients thus far, was standing at a bus stop. His gang-related neck tattoo had not yet completely faded. He was jumped at a bus stop by a rival gang member and stabbed.

Wilkerson is saving lives and jobs. "I had a young man, 22, married, wife and two kids in my office, crying, tattooed up to his neck," said Wilkerson, 76.

He was working as a butcher, and wearing turtlenecks to hide the tattoo. One day he couldn't tolerate the turtleneck and took it off. His boss saw the tattoos, and he was out."

Wilkerson was obviously still moved on the young man's behalf. "He was getting $10 an hour, too, that's pretty good money for unskilled work." She can help him get the tattoo removed, but she couldn't get him his job back.

One man waiting his turn for the laser treatment explained: "Employers are offended. No, not offended, they're intimidated, like I'm not a trustworthy person. They get this idea from the tattoo. When they get to know me they change their minds." tie had the tattoos done when he was a much younger man. Now they're coming off, "because of my children and because I want a better job."

"Lots of stories come through here," said Wilkerson. "The theme that runs through them all is family background."

Once a high school teacher

For the Dominican sister, this is a world and a work far removed from the high school teaching she started out in more a half century ago. Though she originally had no intention of entering religious life -- "It seemed fairly dowdy" -- she read that the Dominicans had started a street preaching team, "and that attracted me. I thought I'd like to go out and see some activity in terms of spreading the gospel and Jesus' message."

Wilkerson entered the order right out of Fontbonne College in St. Louis. But there was no Dominican street preaching. The year she read about it "was the only year the Dominicans did it," she said.

Her St. Louis connections remain strong. They include a twin brother, Msgr. Jerome Wilkerson, who has served as a priest in the St. Louis archdiocese all his life.

After 27 years of teaching, she switched to social justice work. With Catholic Charities in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn., she gave conscience-raising parish talks on the connection between social justice and the gospel, and then connected parishes to feeding programs in poverty areas, particularly for Native Americans. She was in community organizing, too, helping set up the South Minneapolis Coalition, and working part-time at St. John Vianney Seminary in St. Paul.

To expose the students to poverty -- and help provide material for the papers they would write on social justice -- she would take them to Guatemala for a week. "I knew the Notre Dame sisters working down there. They had what looked like a 1930s motel so they were able to accommodate visitors. The students learned a lot because they could go into houses and see what wasn't there. They came back anxious to talk to youth groups and people about their experiences."