When one speaks of a banana boat, they could be speaking of a song, a sun protection product, or an unpowered recreational boat, designed to be pulled by a larger boat. But in the case of Juana Bordas, a nationally-recognized, Colorado-based multicultural entrepreneur and author, she recalls the banana boat as her vehicle to the American way of life. 

The Formation Of A Multicultural Leader

Born on the black coast of Nicaragua, the Mosquito Coast, Bordas left Puerto Cabezas at three years of age, and landed in Tampa, Fl. in a banana boat.  She grew up in the ‘40s, at a time when Latinos where non-existent, in terms of census data.  She was raised with an immigrant spirit – the desire to have a better life and a culture of giving back. 

Her father’s struggle with alcoholism taught her compassion, because he was someone who she loved deeply yet who struggled with something he could not overcome.  Her mother worked in a Catholic school; she cleaned, cooked and took care of children, all for the sake of providing Bordas with an education.  Yes, the young daughter was unable to see her mother’s vision for the future, due to being an immigrant child with a negative self-concept.

She believed, “’I’m poor. I’m dark and disadvantaged. My mom can’t speak English,’” Bordas said, “and I was embarrassed about that.  I had a lot of inferiority complexes because America measured your worth by the amount of money you had.”

She organized her first fundraiser for her 13th birthday party, when she invited eight of her best friends over and asked them to chip in money to buy her uniforms for Catholic school, because she could not afford them.

At 19, she was moved to tears by John F. Kennedy, when he gave his “Ask not what you can do for your country” speech. It made her think of her past and how her mother only had a 5th grade education while the young Bordas was about to graduate from the University of Florida. Feeling that America had given her so much, Bordas dedicated herself to giving back by joining the Peace Corp, the formation of which was inspired by JFK when he challenged students at the University of Michigan to dedicate themselves to peace and development. 

During her two years in Chile, she helped organize production coops for knitting, sewing and baking, so women could make money in the community and in the city. She went on to get a master’s degree in social work at the University of Wisconsin, and later ended up in Colorado, where she worked in Denver’s “barrios,” Spanish for a crowded, inner-city area inhabited chiefly by a Spanish-speaking population.  She worked at day care centers, Denver Health and Human Services. 

In 1977, she founded Denver’s Mi Casa Women’s Center, where she served as executive director for 10 years. Today, Mi Casa is recognized as a national model for women’s empowerment. 

By request of Adolph Coors Company, Bordas developed a leadership program for Hispanic women by founding the National Hispana Leadership Institute (NHLI). Becoming the founding president and CEO of the organization moved her from a grassroots activist to a national leader. 

While at NHLI, Bordas formed partnerships with Harvard University’s JFK School of Government and the Center for Creative Leadership, which allowed several hundred Hispanic women to attend Harvard University.  In addition, she received a grant from the Kellogg Foundation, was invited to become a Kellogg Scholar, and later became a Kellogg Advisor to the Kellogg National Leadership Program.  After seven years as CEO of NHLI, Bordas became a Leadership Development Program instructor for the Center for Creative Leadership.  This period in her life marked a time of career transition out of community service to Latino women and into community service for Anglo men, predominantly.   

The Formation Of An Entrepreneur

After 10 years at the center, Bordas formed her current business, Mestiza Leadership International (MLI), which focuses on diversity, leadership and organizational change. The term “mestiza” refers to the Indian and Spanish mixture in Central and South America. 

Within this business, Bordas founded the Circle for Latina Leadership and ran it for seven years, during which she trained approximately 100 young Latinas between the ages of 25 and 40. The circle is currently run by the Hispanic Chamber Foundation. In addition, she is a keynote and motivational speaker and is scheduled to speak at the Women of Color: Multicultural Conference, sponsored by Working Woman’s Magazine, in July in New York, and at the Rocky Mountain Workforce Development Association Conference in May in Vail. 

Bordas is also a leadership trainer and teacher, working on her seventh session for her Latino Leadership Development Program, a class which consists of representatives from government, business and nonprofit organizations.

The Formation Of A Writer

Bordas always knew she was going to write but did not know in what format.  After she started MLI, she wrote a paper entitled Latino Leadership: Building a Diverse and Humane Society, which was published by the Journal for Leadership Studies. She wrote an essay, Passion and Power:  Finding Personal Purpose, in a book titled Reflections on Leadership published by John Wiley & Sons.  

As a Kellogg Advisor, Bordas connected with national leaders such as David Campbell who had authored books. Campbell advised her she had to write to have influence.  Her desire to author a book was inspired by her passion for changing how Americans generally led.  The resulting book was Salsa, Soul, and Spirit:  Leadership for a Multicultural Age, published in 2007 by Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. 

Salsa, Soul, and Spirit is a book about multicultural leadership. She hopes it will encourage today’s leaders to recognize the rapidly increasing cultural and racial diversity within the U.S. workforce, consumer base and citizenry, so that they feel compelled to better reflect multicultural values, worldviews and principles inherent in today’s multicultural age.  Within her book, Bordas defined the eight principles she felt could assist in the formation of a new type of multicultural leadership.

The book includes interviews with prominent leaders in the African American, American Indian and Latino communities, and discussions of the key points of convergence that exist among them, despite their distinct ways of leading. Her goal to impact American leadership had to involve more than just a Latino focus because “culturally specific leadership books are read predominantly by people within that culture, not by mainstream leaders,” said Bordas.

The title, Salsa, Soul, and Spirit, represents the three cultures upon which she focused. Latinos are the Salsa. To her salsa meant diversity, because each salsa is “unico,” Spanish for unique. Salsa is also a dance and way of life.

Soul was a reflection of the rationalization of slavery. Europeans and Americans of earlier centuries commonly believed that Africans did not have a complete soul. Through slavery, African Americans formed a deep sense of community and spirituality, which was transformed into such things as Soul Food, Soul Brotherhood and Soul Music.  Soul became the essence of their culture. 

To the American Indians, everything was Spirit. The Great Spirit permeated all life and they lived in a spiritual universe. They believed we were all part of this energy, this force, this life called Spirit.

Dr. Jim Joseph, a former U.S. ambassador to South Africa and author, was one of the African-American leaders interviewed by Bordas for her book. Joseph believes leadership is about creating a certain kind of society, and leaders have to uphold public values for everybody, not private values. His input became the topic of Principle 5: Leader as Guardian of Public Values, one of the eight principles of multicultural leadership found in her book. 

Having grown up in the segregated south and educated in a one-room school house, Joseph pointed to Martin Luther King Jr. as an example of compassionate leadership.

“When Martin Luther King Jr. talked about loving the enemy, he was talking about reconciliation. He used the word ‘love,’ not ‘reconciliation,’ but it was the same notion that there had to be forgiveness,” Joseph said.

Benny Shendo Jr., a candidate for New Mexico’s 3rd Congressional District, was also interviewed for Bordas’ book. If successful in the November elections, Shendo will be the first Pueblo Indian to win a seat in Congress.  A native of the Jemez Pueblo, he was appointed by Gov. Bill Richardson as Cabinet Secretary of the New Mexico Indian Affairs Department, and headed up the American Indian Programs at the University of New Mexico. 

Regarding leadership in the Jemez Pueblo, Shendo Jr. states, “The Jemez leader has to be responsible for the community, for the future and for the natural world in which all people live.”

Anna Escobedo Cabral, the Treasurer of the United States, is another leader interviewed in the book. Cabral’s parents were immigrants. She helped her father gather junk and sell it to get money. As the oldest child in her family, she took care of her family when her father was disabled. She was told by a counselor that to help her family she should get an education.  She ended up studying at Harvard, becoming the president/CEO of the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility, and later the head of the Republican Party’s Hispanic Initiatives in the U.S. Senate. 

Cabral has led a number of national Hispanic initiatives and describing this commitment, she said, “What motivates people in our community, people who are doing great work and leading efforts, is that they are looking for the collective. It’s the collective good that drives them.”

“Latinos believe in the concept called ‘destino,’ or destiny.  For Latinos, life is a dance and the ‘destino’ part of it is that you’re born at a certain time and place, and with certain gifts. You’re given some things in life and life brings experiences to you. What you do about it all is an individual choice. It’s a dance, where you go back and forth,” said Bordas. 

With 22 years of experience in managing nonprofit corporations, having built partnerships with the private sector to support innovative programs, and having worked with a variety of leaders of differing cultural backgrounds, Bordas believes “When you look at people and what they’ve accomplished in their life, it starts with their beginning: their roots, values, foundation and even their obstacles. The obstacles in your life can serve to strengthen you.”

Bordas sees her life of leadership as a journey through a series of obstacles that strengthened her to feed her destino. She learned to work hard from her mother, and she learned to enjoy life and have compassion from her father.  Her ability to raise money came from being poor growing up. Transitioning from a grassroots community activist to a national level of leadership was a hurdle in which Bordas felt “You have to take steps and risks. Learning is always hard at new levels. You’re a little unsure of yourself, but take the step and little by little you’ll grow into it; you’ll grow into that next step. Your purpose, your destiny grows as you serve it. As you build your skills, build your network, expand your inputs, your destiny will slowly grow.” 

She was out of her comfort zone when she worked for the Center for Creative Leadership, but felt it was a necessary step for her. There, she learned the importance of forming partnerships and influencing leadership from a different perspective.

Working with the Kellogg Foundation taught her to teach leadership to everyone, not just to her own community. There, her destiny to become a writer surfaced because she was surrounded by writers, and she learned that “Diversity is about consciousness, not color, ethnicity or gender. You can be Latino, and not be multicultural or you could be white and be totally committed to the multicultural society. Diversity has to do with your heart, where you are, whether you believe in equity, whether you give respect to all people regardless of who they are,” she said. 

She views diversity as being about respect and living in peace, and wars as being about people not respecting each other, not being able to live with each other, and not understanding each other.

 “We are all children of God, created equally, and we all have a right to a good life,” said Bordas. 

The Leadership And Legacy Of Bordas

In 2006, Bordas received the Leadership Legacy Award from Howard University Hospital, recognizing her for dedicating her life to multiculturalism. She is honored by this recognition, because it built a bridge between communities of color, “which is what we must do, weave our dreams together as communities that work together, respecting each others’ differences, yet understanding that deep down we’re all the same,” she said.

In January, she received the Martin Luther King Jr. Business Responsibility Award at the annual luncheon in Denver. Bordas quoted King more than any other leader in her book, and felt the award represented the deepest honor she could have.

“I admire, love and follow him. I do my work because I’m inspired by his life. That’s what leaders do; they inspire you to continue their work,” said Bordas.

To Bordas, the most important task for leaders is to leave a legacy.

 “Leaders must proactively take steps to find solutions and to empower people to change their own lives. They must create something and give it back. If you don’t do that, I don’t think you’re a leader, and if you hold on and not release it and let people take it over and change it, and do what they’re gonna do, then you really haven’t given the community a gift,” said Bordas.

She believes leadership can come in any form of positive service to the community. 

“Whether you’re a teacher, drive a school bus, a hairdresser, or whatever job or role you’ve been given to do, and it contributes to the betterment of the community, then you’re a leader because that’s what leaders do,” she said. “I’m trying to be the best I can because leadership competency is not negotiable. You have to be the best you can be.”

LisaMarie Martinez is a writer, spoken word artist, actress, and a master’s prepared nurse, who continually seeks to find the journey of herself in the situations and people that her life has to bring.