José Luis Alberto Muñoz Marín (February 18, 1898 – April 30, 1980), most commonly known as Luis Muñoz Marín, (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈlwis ˈmuɲos maˈɾin]) was a Puerto Rican journalist, politician, and statesman who served as the first democratically elected governor of Puerto Rico from 1949 to 1965. He previously served as the fourth president of the Senate of Puerto Rico from 1941 to 1948.
Founder of the Popular Democratic Party (PPD) in 1938, Muñoz Marín promoted the industrialization of the archipelago and island in continued association with the United States, prioritizing economic development over independence. He is regarded as the architect of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (Spanish: Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit. 'Free Associated State of Puerto Rico'), the current political status of Puerto Rico as an unincorporated territory under the sovereign jurisdiction of the United States with local constitutional self-government since 1952.
Serving as governor for 16 consecutive years from 1949 to 1965, Muñoz Marín spearheaded an administration that engineered profound economic, political, and social reforms, leading to accomplishments that were internationally lauded by many politicians, statesmen, political scientists, and economists of the period. He was instrumental in the suppression of the Nationalist Party and its efforts to achieve the independence of Puerto Rico as a sovereign state, which he supported before adopting a political platform that advocated accommodation with the United States. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Kennedy in 1963.
Luis Muñoz Marín was born on February 18, 1898, at 152 Calle de la Fortaleza in Old San Juan. He was the son of Luis Muñoz Rivera and Amalia Marín Castilla. His father was a poet, publisher, and a politician, responsible for founding two newspapers, El Diario and La Democracia. Days before Luis' birth, his father traveled to Spain to present a proposal of autonomy for Puerto Rico, which was accepted. His father was elected to serve as Secretary of State of Puerto Rico and Chief of the Cabinet for the Government of Puerto Rico.
On October 18, 1898, Puerto Rico was taken by the United States following Spain's defeat in the Spanish–American War. Luis's father assisted in establishing an insular police force, but opposed the military colonial government established by the United States. He resigned from office on February 4, 1899, but was later elected to the House of Delegates of Puerto Rico.
One of Muñoz Marín's paternal great-grandfathers, Luis Muñoz Iglesias, was born on October 12, 1797, in Palencia, Spain. At age 14, he had joined the Spanish Army and battled Napoleon Bonaparte's French Army in the Peninsular War. Afterward he decided to make his career in the army, and was awarded decorations after fighting against Simón Bolívar during the Admirable Campaign of independence in Latin America. Once the conflict was over, he traveled to Puerto Rico along with his commanding officer, Miguel de la Torre. He subsequently settled in a farm in Cidra and married María Escolástica Barrios. One of his great-grandmothers was Rosa Solá, a woman held in slavery by his great grandfather, Vicente Marín.
In 1901, when Muñoz Marín was three years old, a group of statehood supporters broke into his father's El Diario's building and vandalized most of the equipment. Following this incident, the family moved to Caguas. After receiving further threats from the statehood movements, the family moved to New York City. There Muñoz Marín learned English, while his father founded the bilingual newspaper, Puerto Rico Herald. During the following years, the family frequently traveled between both locations. His father founded the Unionist Party in Puerto Rico, which won the election in 1904. Following the party's victory, his father was elected as a member of the House of Delegates.
Muñoz Marín began his elementary education at William Penn Public School in Santurce, a district of San Juan. Most classes were taught in English, a change imposed by the American colonial government. Muñoz Marín's knowledge of English allowed him to be advanced to second grade, although he had some difficulty the next year. In 1908, Muñoz Marín was enrolled in a small private school in San Juan. Working with the teacher Pedro Moczó, in two years he covered all the material normally taught to students between third and eighth grade, passing tests with good grades.
In 1910, his father was elected as Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico. This position is a non-voting delegate to the United States Congress.
In 1911, he began his studies at the Georgetown Preparatory School but disliked its strict discipline and failed the tenth grade. In 1915, his father enrolled him at Georgetown University Law Center, but Muñoz Marín was uninterested and wanted to become a poet.
In late 1916, Muñoz Marín and his mother were called to Puerto Rico by their friend Eduardo Georgetti, who said Luis' father was suffering from an infection spreading from his gallbladder. Muñoz Rivera died on November 15, 1916, when Luis was eighteen.
Poetry and ideological contrasts
A month later Muñoz Marín and his mother returned to New York; he sold his law books and refused to return to Georgetown. Within one month he published a book titled Borrones, composed of several stories and a one-act play. For several months, he served as the congressional clerk to Félix Córdova Dávila, who succeeded Muñoz Marín's father as Resident Commissioner.
On July 1, 1919, Muñoz Marín married Muna Lee, an American writer from Raymond, Mississippi, who had grown up in Oklahoma. Lee was a leading Southern feminist and a rising writer of Pan-American poetry. They had a daughter and a son together, but often lived apart before separating in 1938.
During the 1920s Muñoz Marín spent the majority of his time in Greenwich Village, where he lived apart from his wife and young children. During those years he often asked his wife and mother to send him money, and indulged in a "Bohemian lifestyle" that strained his marriage. Muñoz Marín and his wife Muna Lee underwent a legal separation in 1938.
During his first campaign for the Puerto Rico Senate in 1932, Muñoz Marín was accused of being a narcotics addict; he was alleged to be addicted to opium.
Before his campaigns of 1938 and 1939, while he was still legally married, Muñoz Marín met Inés Mendoza. A teacher, she became his mistress and was fired for complaining about the prohibition against classes in Spanish. They agreed that substituting "one language for another is to diminish that country's capacity to be happy". Muñoz Marín asked Mendoza to "stay with him all his life."
In 1940, a month after his election as President of the Senate in Puerto Rico, Muñoz Marín and Mendoza had a daughter, Victoria, named to commemorate his success. He and Mendoza officially married in 1946, and they had a second daughter, Viviana.