PLACAS : the Most Dangerous Tattoo

Paul S. Flores is a performance artist, published poet, playwright, and well known spoken word artist. He was raised in Chula Vista, CA and spent much of his youth in Tijuana, Mexico. He co-founded the Latino poetry performance group Los Delicados with Norman Zelaya and Darren de Leon. He also wrote the PEN Award winning novel "Along the border lies", and his spoken word poem "Brown Dreams" was featured on Def Poetry on HBO. Flores work explores the intersection of urban culture, Hip-Hop and transnational identity, using theatre as a tool to talk about communities divided by police violence, racism, gentrification and economic disparity. He has been named The San Francisco Weekly's 2011 Best Politically Active Hip-Hop Performance Artist and has toured extensively with his works

Placas is a slang word that refers to the tattoos marking one's affiliation with a gang. In this play, Salvadorian refugee Fausto is determined to turn his life around and prevent his son from following the violent path he had to endure. The painful and lengthy tattoo removal procedure serves as a metaphor for Fausto's own life journey. A tattoo, a symbol of permanence, poses the question: can a person ever erase their own past? "There is no such a thing as a 'former' gang member, but there might be a second chance," says Fausto in his opening monologue. Paul Flores also portrays the difficult migration dynamics faced by people fleeing the Salvadorian Civil War. Fausto's son grew up ostracized inside a migrant neighborhood in San Francisco, where he loathes his father and his past, but he might nonetheless mirror his father's steps because of the limited life choices available to him. The quest for belonging, familiarity, and community are at the heart of the play, where familial and kinship models, based on either blood or violent allegiance, are blurred.