Editing Luis Muñoz Marín (section)

===President of the Senate===
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In 1940, the Popular Democratic Party won a majority in the [[Senate of Puerto Rico]], which was attributed to his campaigning in the rural areas, he first gave a speech in [[Dorado, Puerto Rico]] in the balcony of a house owned by electrician Luis Pérez Álvarez, in 1947. Muñoz Marín was elected as the fourth President of the Senate.<ref name="Britannica">{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.britannica.com/hispanic_heritage/article-9054292|title=Muñoz Marín, Luis|access-date=October 1, 2007|encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]: Guide to Hispanic Heritage|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071101102147/http://www.britannica.com/hispanic_heritage/article-9054292|archive-date=November 1, 2007|url-status=live}}</ref>

During his term as President of the Senate, Muñoz was an advocate of the working class of Puerto Rico.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/modules/lesson16/lesson16.php?s=0|title=Puerto Rican Labor Movement|access-date=October 1, 2007|work=Center for History and New Media, George Mason University|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629062333/http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/modules/lesson16/lesson16.php?s=0|archive-date=June 29, 2011|url-status=live}}</ref> Along with Governor [[Rexford Tugwell]], the last non-Puerto Rican US-appointed Governor, and the republican-socialist coalition which headed the House of Representatives, Muñoz helped advance legislation for agricultural reform, economic recovery, and industrialization.<ref name="p.73"/> This program became known as [[Operation Bootstrap]]. It was coupled with a program of agrarian reform (land redistribution) which limited the area to be held by large sugarcane interests. During the first four decades of the 20th century, Puerto Rico's dominant economic commodity had been sugarcane by-products.<ref name="NPR.org 2020">{{cite web | title=Borinquén : Throughline | website=NPR.org | date=2020-07-16 | url=https://www.npr.org/2020/07/15/891442022/borinqu-n | access-date=2020-07-16}}</ref>

Operation Bootstrap encouraged investors to transfer or create manufacturing plants, offering them local and federal tax concessions, while maintaining access to American markets free of import duties. The program facilitated a shift to an industrial economy. During the 1950s, labor-intensive light industries were developed on the island, such as textiles; manufacturing later gave way to heavy industry, such as petrochemicals and oil refining, in the 1960s and 1970s. Taught in Spanish, ''jíbaros'' were trained to work in jobs being promoted by the government.<ref name="p.74">Bernier-Grand et al., p. 74</ref> Muñoz Marín backed legislation to limit the amount of land a company could own. His development programs brought some prosperity for an emergent middle class. A rural agricultural society was transformed into an industrial working class. Muñoz Marín also launched ''Operación Serenidad'' ("Operation Serenity"), a series of projects geared toward promoting education and appreciation of the arts.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.flmm.com/pags_nuevas_folder/biografia_folder/op_serenidad.html|title=Operación Serenidad|access-date=October 2, 2007|work=Fundación Luis Muñoz Marín|language=es|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071016101224/http://flmm.com/pags_nuevas_folder/biografia_folder/op_serenidad.html|archive-date=October 16, 2007|url-status=dead|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

Civil rights groups and the Catholic Church criticized Operation Bootstrap, for what they saw as government-promoted birth control, encouragement of surgical sterilization, and fostering the migration of Puerto Ricans to the United States mainland.<ref name="Women">{{cite web|url=http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/modules/lesson16/lesson16.php?s=0|title=Women in World History|publisher=Center for History and New Media, George Mason University|access-date=August 8, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629062333/http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/modules/lesson16/lesson16.php?s=0|archive-date=June 29, 2011|url-status=live}}</ref> In 1943 Puerto Rico would pass a [[m:s:mul:Ley de Derechos Civiles de Puerto Rico|Civil Rights Act ]] would ended a great deal of race-related discrimination in Puerto Rico.<ref name=puertoricocivilrights /> In 1945, [[Eric Williams]] would acknowledge the progress in civil rights in Puerto Rico at the time, conceding that despite some issues related to class discrimination, "The Negro enjoys equality with the white man politically as well as legally," and that even opponents of Muñoz Marín "agree that he and his [[Popular Democratic Party (Puerto Rico)|party]] have given Negroes a square deal and opened positions to them, especially in the teaching profession and the higher ranks of the police force, from which they were conventionally debarred."<ref name=puertoricocivilrights>{{cite news|url=https://dh.howard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1022&context=hist_fac|title=Race Relations In Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands|first=Eric|last=Williams|date=1945|publisher=Howard University History Department Faculty Publications. 23.|accessdate=May 26, 2024}}</ref>