Luis Muñoz Marín Foundation
“An Adventure in History”

In Puer­to Rico we have a say­ing: “Los pueb­los que no cono­cen su his­to­ria están con­de­na­dos a repe­tir­la” (Peo­ple who don’t know their his­to­ry are doomed to repeat it). How­ev­er, it’s not a local phrase. It was first coined by the Span­ish poet George San­tayana at the dawn of the 20th Cen­tu­ry. How­ev­er, that’s one of the first ques­tions that you ask your­self (or at least I did) when you vis­it the Luis Muñoz Marín Foun­da­tion: How could a peo­ple that accom­plished so much get to where they are today; bank­rupt in almost every sense of the word?

And of course I’m talk­ing about the Puer­to Rican peo­ple. When vis­it­ing the Luis Muñoz Marín Foun­da­tion you’ll prob­a­bly see soci­etal rot and urban decay along your way. You’ll also fall into a cou­ple of pot­holes (if you’re lucky). This is the same island that was once called “the shin­ing star of the Caribbean”. Except that it’s not shiny any­more, in spite of my best efforts to show you the bright side on Puer­to Rico By GPS.

Luis Muñoz Marín

So how did we get to where we are? The truth is that I won’t answer that ques­tion because I’d have to write an entire book instead of just this blog post. But what I will do is tell you how we got to where we were. That was thanks to a man called José Luis Alber­to Muñoz Marín and to the excel­lent team of pro­fes­sion­als that sur­round­ed him. You’ve prob­a­bly heard of him sim­ply as Luis Muñoz Marín. And if you got here on a plane, you prob­a­bly land­ed at his air­port, or more prop­er­ly at the air­port that car­ries his name..

My wife Zory and I are on a mis­sion to vis­it every town­ship in Puer­to Rico. After vis­it­ing 22 U.S. Nation­al Parks in the past five years, and dri­ving over 18,000 miles, we thought it was time to enjoy our own island for a change.

Our first stop was at Car­oli­na, where we pro­duced one video, one blog post and two arti­cles. Then we set our sights on Tru­jil­lo Alto. Tru­jil­lo Alto is a small­er town that’s present­ly going through the tur­moil of hav­ing its may­or con­vict­ed and jailed for cor­rup­tion. So we decid­ed not to con­tact the city offi­cials and sim­ply vis­it the town like any oth­er tourist would. Even so we pro­duced an excel­lent video (if I do say so myself) and vis­it­ed the Luis Muñoz Marín Foun­da­tion.

The Luis Muñoz Marín Foun­da­tion is one of those amaz­ing places that you’ve lived by for years, dri­ven by a hun­dred times, and nev­er vis­it­ed. At least that was my case, since I live about ten min­utes away and I’ve been in Puer­to Rico since 1963.

Ricar­do Zeno, our inter­preter for the day. (click on image to see it larger)

When we got there we met with Ricar­do Zeno, an excel­lent inter­preter who ded­i­cat­ed half of his day to giv­ing us the roy­al treat­ment. That’s when I learned the dif­fer­ence between a guide and an inter­preter. A guide is some­one that shows you some­thing. An inter­preter is some­one who knows a mat­ter inside out and tai­lors your expe­ri­ence to your knowl­edge lev­el. So my learn­ing start­ed the minute I set foot in the Luis Muñoz Marín Foundation.

The Luis Muñoz Marín Foun­da­tion sits on a 17 ½ acre plot of land on the out­skirts of the munic­i­pal­i­ty of San Juan. So much so that most Puer­to Ricans think that it’s in Tru­jil­lo Alto. I was one of those peo­ple. So that was the sec­ond thing that I learned upon meet­ing our interpreter.

Ricar­do is a friend­ly indi­vid­ual that made our vis­it delight­ful. He was also quite knowl­edge­able and was able to answer even our most chal­leng­ing questions.

This is where it all start­ed and this is where Luis and Inés returned. This was the Luis Muñoz Marín res­i­dence. (click on image to see it larger.

Our tour start­ed right in front of the small house that Luis Muñoz Marín and his sec­ond wife Inés Men­doza called home. It’s a small three-bed­room con­crete struc­ture that had already been built back in 1938 when the Marins fell in love with it.

But let’s not get ahead of our­selves. Who was Muñoz Marín?

José Luis Alber­to Muñoz Marín was born on Calle For­t­aleza in Old San Juan. He was the son of Luis Muñoz Rivera, a Puer­to Rican poet, jour­nal­ist and politi­cian who was the Island’s res­i­dent com­mis­sion­er dur­ing the gov­er­nor­ship of Reg­is Hen­ri Post.

Like his father, Luis Muñoz Marín was also a poet, jour­nal­ists and politi­cian. But that’s where the sim­i­lar­i­ties end­ed. While Muñoz Rivera favored auton­o­my for the Island since Span­ish colo­nial times, Muñoz Marín start­ed as a social­ist and favored full inde­pen­dence (at least dur­ing his ear­ly years).

We was also a bohemi­an and fre­quent­ed intel­lec­tu­al cir­cles of all types. This would have a direct bear­ing on his gov­ern­ment lat­er on, as he sur­round­ed him­self with thinkers and not just politi­cians (in the mod­ern sense of the word).

At a very young age Muñoz Marín became the edi­tor of La Democ­ra­cia, a news­pa­per found­ed by his father on July 1, 1890, in the town of Ponce, Puer­to Rico. La Democracia’s edi­to­r­i­al line cru­sad­ed for Puer­to Rican self gov­ern­ment. He also pub­lished a news­pa­per in Wash­ing­ton that cov­ered Puer­to Rican news for the “Wash­ing­to­ni­ans” and Wash­ing­ton news for the Puer­to Ricans. He also act­ed as a pseu­do-sec­re­tary for his father. All this before the age of 18.

On Novem­ber 15, 1916 Luis Muñoz Rivera died at the young age of 57 and Luis Muñoz Marín was thrust­ed into two impor­tant roles. First, Jesús T. Piñero (remem­ber him from Car­oli­na?) became Res­i­dent Com­mis­sion­er, dur­ing the gov­er­nor­ship of Rex­ford Tug­well and asked Luis Muñoz Marín to per­form the same work that he had been doing for his late father. And sec­ond, he was left entire­ly in charge of “La Democracia”.

How­ev­er, Jesús T. Piñero’s stint as Res­i­dent Com­mis­sion­er was short lived, as in 1946 he was named gov­er­nor of Puer­to Rico by Pres­i­dent Har­ry S. Tru­man, becom­ing the first Puer­to Rican to occu­py that post under U.S. admin­is­tra­tion. But not all was peach­es and cream dur­ing the Piñero administration.

On May 21, 1948, a bill was intro­duced before the Puer­to Rican Sen­ate which would restrain the rights of the inde­pen­dence and Nation­al­ist move­ments on the arch­i­pel­ago, and a young Luis Muñoz Marín —who was pres­i­dent of the Puer­to Rican Sen­ate at the time— approved it. That bill came to be known as “la mor­daza”. So much for the “First Amend­ment” and Muñoz’s affil­i­a­tion to the inde­pen­dence movement.

In 1947 the U.S. Con­gress enact­ed leg­is­la­tion allow­ing Puer­to Ricans to elect their own gov­er­nor and a year lat­er, in 1948, Luis Muñoz Marín won the gen­er­al elec­tion by a land­slide run­ning as an inde­pen­dent under the Pop­u­lar Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty insignia. He was the first Puer­to Rican to be elect­ed gov­er­nor of the Island.

So what was Luis Muñoz Marín’s mag­ic? How did he man­age to pre­side the Puer­to Rican sen­ate for 8 years, be gov­er­nor for 16 and then return to the sen­ate for an addi­tion­al 4 years? That ques­tion has many answers, but maybe the most impor­tant one is that it nev­er went to his head.

Remem­ber that small three-bed­room con­crete struc­ture that I was telling you about a few para­graphs back? Well, he bought it before becom­ing gov­er­nor of the Island and that’s where he returned after he was done. He could have had it all and yet decid­ed to be an hon­est pub­lic ser­vant. Those are three words that we sel­dom hear in a row these days.

So how did he do it? Back then Steve Jobs had­n’t even been born, yet Muñoz did exact­ly what Steve would’ve sug­gest­ed: “he sur­round­ed him­self with the best peo­ple and he let them do their thing”. Of course, Luis Muñoz Marín wouldn’t have put it quite that way, but hey, I’m the writer here so “give me a break”.

Who where those peo­ple? Guys like Rober­to Sánchez Vilel­la (engi­neer), José Trias Mon­ge (lawyer and judge), Mar­i­ano Vil­laron­ga (edu­ca­tor), Sol Luis Descartes (Cor­nell grad­u­ate), Ricar­do Ale­gría (schol­ar, cul­tur­al anthro­pol­o­gist and archae­ol­o­gist), San­ti­a­go Polan­co Abreu (lawyer and politi­cian) Teodoro Moscoso (busi­ness­man, diplo­mat­ic corps, politi­cian) and many oth­ers. And to put “the cher­ry” on it all Puer­to Rico’s pub­li­cist at the time was none oth­er than the famous David Ogilvy; the father of mod­ern advertising.

It was an eclec­tic mix of tech­nocrats, human­ists and deep thinkers that came up with ideas like “oper­a­tion boot­strap” and “oper­a­tion seren­i­ty” (operación serenidad). At first glance these seemed like oppos­ing ideas but in hind­sight they were just what the Island need­ed. The for­mer was a mul­ti-prong plan to indus­tri­al­ize the Island and the lat­er made sure that Puer­to Ricans wouldn’t lose their human­i­ty along the way.

Oper­a­tion Seren­i­ty include projects like the “Insti­tute of Puer­to Rican Cul­ture”, the “Casals Fes­ti­val”, the “Puer­to Rico Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra”, the “Puer­to Rico Con­ser­va­to­ry of Music” and the “Puer­to Rican Divi­sion of Com­mu­ni­ty Edu­ca­tion” that includ­ed: rolling libraries, rolling muse­ums, trav­el­ing the­ater, plas­tic arts and a mas­sive lit­er­a­cy campaign.

Luis and Inés weren’t “palace kind of peo­ple”. Those are not my words, they were actu­al­ly uttered more than once by doña Inés. They pre­ferred the peace and qui­et of their small home in Tru­jil­lo (or in San Juan?).

Well let’s set­tle that. The prop­er­ty was orig­i­nal­ly in Tru­jil­lo Alto, but it end­ed up in Río Piedras (a town that no lon­er exists) when the city maps were redrawn. Then on June 4, 1951, the town of Río Piedras was annexed to San Juan and that’s how the Luis Muñoz Marín prop­er­ty end­ed up in San Juan.

This is where “the sausage” was made, from rock­ing chairs under a trop­i­cal tree canopy. Click on image to see it larger.

So back to the “palace” thing. Many of Puer­to Rico’s most impor­tant deci­sions dur­ing the 1950’s and 60’s weren’t made at La For­t­aleza. They were made from rock­ing chairs in a small tree-cov­ered ter­race called “el ran­cho”, right next to the Marín home. That’s where the Mar­in’s felt at home and that’s where they did their best thinking.

After 16 years in pow­er Luis Muñoz Marín and his team trans­formed Puer­to Rico from “the poor house” of the Caribbean into a shin­ing exam­ple of progress and pros­per­i­ty for all Latin America.

Right next to “el ran­cho” is the orig­i­nal Muñoz Marín house exact­ly as Inés María Men­doza left it on the day that she died. It’s like step­ping back in time and get­ting a “fly-on-the-wall” look at life in the Muñoz Marín house­hold. The foun­da­tion has spared no expense in pre­serv­ing the prop­er­ty “frozen in time”. Every­thing is cat­a­logued, num­bered and kept in a cli­mate con­trolled envi­ron­ment 24/7.

I must point out that the reg­u­lar tour of the Luis Muñoz Marín foun­da­tion doesn’t include a vis­it to the inte­ri­or of his home. Vis­i­tors walk around the prop­er­ty, look through the win­dows and receive ample infor­ma­tion from knowl­edge­able bilin­gual inter­preters. We were priv­i­leged to enter the home, see it in its entire­ty and pho­to­graph it to our heart’s content.

Take a close look at the pic­tures and you’ll see how “down to earth” this fam­i­ly was. There are hun­dreds of fam­i­ly pic­tures through­out the house, dozens of draw­ings on the bath­room walls that were made by Inés María’s daugh­ters, grand­chil­dren and great grand­chil­dren, her glass­es, her scale (because she weighed her­self dai­ly), Luis’ wedge pil­low (because he suf­fered from gas­tric reflux), dozens of com­men­da­tions, signed base­balls (because he also loved sports) and a yel­low formi­ca kitchen with plain walls and a ter­ra­zo tile floor.

There’s noth­ing out­stand­ing about this house, except that it belonged to one of the great­est Puer­to Rican fam­i­lies in his­to­ry. Oh, and the fact that Inés and Luis actu­al­ly got mar­ried on the porch and most of the ini­tial meet­ings of Puer­to Rico’s Pop­u­lar Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty were also held there.

This was sup­posed to be the Luis Muñoz Marín Library (click on image to see it larger.

A few feet across the way are two white struc­tures that where orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed to be the Luis Muñoz Marín Library, sort of an idea copied from the Unit­ed States. Well, Luis Muñoz Marín didn’t like the idea. He con­sid­ered it pre­sump­tu­ous and a waste of the people’s mon­ey. How­ev­er, since he became a sen­a­tor again after leav­ing the gov­er­nor­ship, he acced­ed to the idea when it was repack­aged as some­thing relat­ed to his new position.

Muñoz Marín’s last office. (Click on image to see it larger)

The way he saw it the new facil­i­ties allowed him to work part of the time at the Capi­tol build­ing and the rest next to his home. So I guess you could say that Luis Muñoz Marín was one of the first —if not the first— on the Island to have a “home office”.

A few steps lat­er we arrived at the “His­tor­i­cal Archive” where his­to­ri­ans, writ­ers, uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents and any­one look­ing for hard to find infor­ma­tion about Puer­to Rico in the 20th Cen­tu­ry can go for help.

Over 50 col­lec­tions, with thou­sands of doc­u­ments per col­lec­tion, are kept in cli­mate con­trolled con­di­tions, orga­nized, cat­a­loged and in many cas­es dig­i­tized for pos­ter­i­ty. There are also two large libraries, a large col­lec­tion of seri­graph post­cards and a book store.

And then there’s the Teodoro Vidal Collection.

Teodoro Vidal was quite a char­ac­ter. He was an econ­o­mist by trade when he decid­ed to enlist in the U.S. Army. When he came back he land­ed a job work­ing direct­ly with Teodoro Moscoso, the man respon­si­ble for the Oper­a­tion Boot­strap mir­a­cle. At the time Muñoz Marín was start­ing Oper­a­tion Seren­i­ty and Vidal became a col­lec­tor of Puer­to Rican artefacts.

Along came the 70’s, Muñoz Marín was already out of office, and Vidal decid­ed to start a non-prof­it foun­da­tion to estab­lish Puer­to Rico’s first Nation­al Muse­um (some­thing that the Island still doesn’t have to date).

Then the 90’s came and Vidal real­ized that he was still fight­ing an uphill bat­tle. So he decid­ed to donate his entire col­lec­tion to the Smith­son­ian Muse­um, in the hope that con­ti­nen­tal Puer­to Ricans would be more appreciative.

How­ev­er, he made one mis­take. He con­tin­ued col­lect­ing stuff. So much so that his sec­ond col­lec­tion grew to thou­sands of items going back four cen­turies.  A short time before his death he decid­ed to donate his new col­lec­tion to the Luis Muñoz Marín Foun­da­tion. Man­age­ment at the Foun­da­tion agreed with­out real­ly think­ing it through. They built a struc­ture in the style of the Smith­son­ian, with an exhib­it area at ground lev­el and a cli­mate-con­trolled deposit below. Then they ran out of money.

You see, run­ning and main­tain­ing a facil­i­ty for some­thing as exten­sive as the Vidal Col­lec­tion takes lots and lots of mon­ey, and funds for the Luis Muñoz Marín Foun­da­tion have been dry­ing up dur­ing recent admin­is­tra­tions. Now the col­lec­tion sits in the cli­mate con­trolled deposit below and the top floor is rent­ed out for events. All this while they try to secure the funds to com­plete the project.

This is an area that’s beyond lim­its for most vis­i­tors, but once again we were grant­ed a brief vis­it and the chance to take pic­tures and shoot video. What you see above is only a sam­ple of this immense collection.

So why did I start this post with the George San­tayana’s quote: “Peo­ple who don’t know their his­to­ry are doomed to repeat it”? Because after tak­ing this tour most vis­i­tors can’t under­stand how a peo­ple that made so much progress dur­ing the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s can be in such finan­cial and social straits these days. And just so you know, I could explain it to you, but it would take anoth­er post even longer than this one (maybe even a book).

From here our next stop was the Doña Inés Park, an 11½ acre oasis in the blis­ter­ing Puer­to Rican sun that was acquired after her death. I will cov­er the park in a sep­a­rate post, since this one is get­ting kind’a long already

How­ev­er, there is one last thing that I would like to make absolute­ly clear. The Luis Muñoz Marín Foun­da­tion is not one of those places where you just show up, pay your admit­tance fee and walk right in. You have to make a reservation.

There are trained inter­preters that tai­lor each tour to your spe­cif­ic par­ty. And yes, there are tours in Span­ish or Eng­lish. For more infor­ma­tion call 787–755-7979.

Final­ly, if you liked this arti­cle, and you plan to vis­it Puer­to Rico —and the Luis Muñoz Marín Foun­da­tion— in the near future, you’ll find ample infor­ma­tion on this web­site. You can also book flights, hotels & car rentals at great prices through the wid­gets on the right hand col­umn .

And yes, they are affil­i­ate links. That means that I make a small com­mis­sion while you pay exact­ly the same that you’d pay any­where else. That way you get to return the favor with­out spend­ing an extra dime.

See you next time,

©2023,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
____________________

Bilin­gual Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Pod­cast­er,
Author, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er and New Media Expert
Tel. 787–750-0000, Mobile 787–306-1590