1. Juana Bordas is a founder of several Denver, Colorado-area organizations promoting Latino and Latina leadership, including the Mi Casa Resource Center for Women, the National Hispana Leadership Institute, and Mestiza Leadership International, where she currently serves as president.
Juana Bordas has authored two books and is a motivational speaker and workshop presenter for conferences and businesses.
Juana Maria Bordas was born in a small mining town in Nicaragua in 1942.
Juana Bordas's father left the family to earn money in the United States when she was a baby; at age 3, she and her older siblings and mother followed him to Tampa, Florida, on a banana boat.
Juana Bordas attended the Academy of the Holy Names, a Catholic all-girls high school, on a scholarship, and babysat during Sunday services at a local church to cover the rest of her tuition.
Juana Bordas was the first in her family to attend college.
Juana Bordas became involved in campus activism at the University of Florida; in 1963 she joined a march to the administration building to protest the non-enrollment of minority students.
Juana Bordas was president of the Institute for its first seven years.
Juana Bordas was the first Latina faculty member of the Center for Creative Leadership, and the first Hispanic certified psychiatric social worker in Colorado.
Juana Bordas was the Fall 2008 Scholar in Residence at Frostburg State University.
Juana Bordas has served as an advisor for the Hispanic Journal on Public Policy at Harvard University and the Kellogg National Fellows Program.
Juana Bordas published her first book, Salsa, Soul, and Spirit: Leadership for a Multicultural Age, in 2007.
Juana Bordas was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1997.
Juana Bordas has received numerous awards and honors, including the 2006 Leadership Legacy Award from the Spellman College Center for Leadership; the 2008 Martin Luther King Jr.