SALSA, the Strategic Alliance for Leadership and Social Action, will begin its 4th annual Hispanic Heritage Month celebration by presenting a Lifetime Achievement Award to Dr. Juan Andrade.

A Brownwood High School and HPU graduate, he is the 4th Hispanic in history to be decorated by both a President of the United States at the White House “for the performance of exemplary deeds of service for the nation” and by the Government of Mexico for his services to the Mexican and Mexican American communities.

During his lifetime, Andrade influenced Texas law to allow Spanish to be spoken in ALL public-school classrooms, negotiated legislation to investigate and prosecute farmworker housing violations in Wisconsin, drafted legislation to create a state agency in Ohio to facilitate Hispanic access to state agencies and services, and worked to promote democracy in 10 countries.

Locally, in 1972, together with city officials, he organized and led community efforts to expand the Wiggins Park swimming pool and build a pavilion, to pave, curb and gutter most streets in the Mexican part of town, restored the parking area of the First Mexican Baptist Church by reducing the width of Andrews Street, and organized low-income leaders in six Central Texas counties to change the composition of the board of directors and leadership of Central Texas Opportunities and was elected chairman. At HPU, he endowed the first of two scholarship funds for Hispanic students in 1975.

More recently, he organized local families who donated and planted 39 trees around Wiggins Park to honor and memorialize Brownwood’s first Mexican families and beautify the park. His home church also planted 24 trees to memorialize the founders and honor current members.

Andrade is co-founder and president of the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute (USHLI) in Chicago and for 43 years has sponsored the largest annual gathering of students and emerging leaders representing 40 states. USHLI is the only non-federally funded organization in America to be named National Hispanic Organization of the Year. USHLI has registered 2.3 million new voters, trained 1.1 million leaders, awarded $1.6 million in scholarships and published 425 reports on Hispanic demographics, including the Almanac of Latino Politics.

Andrade has been honored by most national Hispanic organizations and publications, been listed five times among the “100 Most Influential Hispanics in America”, and a regular television and radio commentator and newspaper columnist. He was a Chicagoan of the Year in 2014, earned five degrees, including three master’s and a doctorate, and received six honorary doctorates.