VENTURA : Activist Designs Latino Role Model Poster

Hoping to offer Ventura County’s Latino youths positive role models, a Ventura man has designed a poster that he believes can counterbalance the negative images of incarcerated gang members depicted on placards distributed by prosecutors.

Modeled after the two “Boyz N the Jail” posters portraying some of the county’s worst juvenile criminals, the new poster has a lineup of eight Latinos who have achieved successful careers in the county.

The poster shows people in a range of occupations, from educators and attorneys to an assistant college football coach.

“I want the kids to get the idea we do have some positive role models,” said Jack Nava, a Latino activist who designed the poster and unveiled it Monday.

Nava said he believes the district attorney’s “Boyz N the Jail” posters, which have been widely distributed in schools, reinforce stereotypes of Latinos as gang members or immigrants who become a drain on society.

“It’s unfortunate that that’s their view of it,” said Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Kevin J. McGee.

“The poster doesn’t focus on any particular ethnic group at all, it focuses on gang members,” he said.

“I think both posters are really aimed at the same goal--to keep young people out of gangs,” he said.

In the first “Boyz N the Jail” poster, five of the nine youths depicted are Latino, and in the sequel poster, four of nine are Latino.

Nava said he hopes his poster will be hung beside the one showing criminals.

“I want these posters to be in the schools, the libraries. . . so the kids can have something positive to take a look at,” he said.