Operation Bootstrap
Operation Bootstrap (Spanish: Operación Manos a la Obra) is the name given to a series of projects which transformed the economy of Puerto Rico into an industrial and developed one.
Pressure grew in the U.S. to address the worsening situation, influenced by journalists like John Gunther who described the island in 1941 as such: "I saw, in short, misery, disease, squalor, filth.
The initiative granted private and foreign investment a ten year period of exemption from taxes on many of the expenses for businesses involved in the industrial economy.
According to Virginia Sanchez Korrol from the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Operation Bootstrap was based on 3 essential elements: “1) industrialization by invitation: the inducement of American corporations to relocate in Puerto Rico in exchange for lucrative tax benefits; (2) a cheap labor pool, educated in the English language and under a U.S. imposed curriculum; (3) proposed emigration of over a third of the island’s population, a security measure to insure the plan’s viability.”[10] The US government in Puerto Rico enticed US companies by providing labor at costs below those on the mainland, access to US markets without import duties, and profits that could transfer to the mainland free from federal taxation.
The Administration of Economic Development invited investment of external capital, importing the raw materials, and exporting the finished products to the mainland.
It also faced criticism from civil rights groups and the Catholic Church, who perceived the government promoting birth control, and engaging in non-consensual surgical sterilization.
American industrialists influenced by eugenicists policies were concerned with "overpopulation" and a perceived lack of self-control on the part of the working class Puerto Ricans.
[15] Those able to secure a stable job as a result of Operation Bootstrap received higher wages than before, in fact, "The average real weekly salary in manufacturing increased from $18 for men and $12 for women in 1953 to $44 and $37 respectively in 1963.
[2] Women in Operation Bootstrap were targeted as an important labor force, especially for the garment and apparel industry, which represented a share of the manufacturing market.
The growth of the industrial sector could not match the rapid decline of monocultural plantation jobs that characterized the economy of Puerto Rico Pre-World War II.
