Juana María Bordas (born 1942) is a Nicaraguan–American community activist specializing in leadership development and diversity training.

[3] Her 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.

[4] She 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.

[6] She 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.

[1][8] Inspired by her parents, who believed that education was key to Latino advancement, and by President John F. Kennedy, who spoke on campus about the need to "give back to your country", she joined the Peace Corps after completing her undergraduate degree.

[10] She was also the first Latina faculty member of the Center for Creative Leadership,[6] and the first Hispanic certified psychiatric social worker in Colorado.

[12] Bordas has served as an advisor for the Hispanic Journal on Public Policy at Harvard University and the Kellogg National Fellows Program.

[6][13] In 1993 she was considered for the post of Peace Corps director by the Clinton administration;[14] the position was ultimately filled by Carol Bellamy.

[4][7] In the book, Bordas mentions a common impediment for educational advancement in the Latino community called the "crab syndrome": My parents wanted to protect me; they struggled with my decision to leave home to attend college.