CTN Peer Mentor, Rosie Castro was the recipient of UnidosUS’s 2022 Maclovio Barraza Award for Leadership due to her political and civil rights activism. For over five decades, Castro has worked with many community and political organizations, always to engage and elevate the Texas Hispanic community. Her political savviness has forced political organizations to change their flawed processes to include disenfranchised communities. Raising her twin sons Julian Castro and Congressman Joaquin Castro, she planted the seed of social justice, paving the way for their political careers and encouraging Latinos everywhere to be engaged and involved in every aspect of politics

The Maclovio Barraza Award for Leadership, named in honor of the UnidosUS Board of Directors’ founding chairperson, recognizes an individual whose leadership has served as a source of strength and support to the Hispanic community. The recipient of this award must have worked for the betterment of the Hispanic community at the local level, and his or her contributions must be recent and relevant to contemporary Hispanic America.

UnidosUS is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that serves as the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization. (https://unidosus.org/)