also named by 500th Centennial commission as one of the three Latin American artists who have contributed the most in uniting Latin America. In 2000, she was paid a tribute in the Antonio Paoli Hall of the Luis A. Ferré Center for the Performing Arts in Puerto Rico. During the tribute she was proclaimed "The Singer of the Century" of Puerto Rico. In June 2012, the Senate of Puerto Rico approved Resolución Conjunta del Senado 957 (Joint Senate Resolution 957) to rename the Museo de la Música Puertorriqueña in Ponce as Museo de la Música Puertorriqueña Ruth Fernández in honor of the singer from Ponce. Political life She was elected into the Senate of Puerto Rico, representing the district of Ponce as a member of the Partido Popular Democrático de Puerto Rico. Her loyalty to the party had been long standing: when Rafael Hernández Colón first ran for governor of Puerto Rico in 1972, Fernández sang a campaign jingle for his campaign. As a legislator, Fernández sought many reforms and better working conditions for the artistic class. She also looked after the needs of Puerto Ricans living in the United States; a tenement in The Bronx, New York, is named after her, Ruth Fernández Apartments. After her senatorial term was over, she served as a cultural adviser to Hernández Colón. In 1990, she was selected by Imagen (Image) magazine as one of the ten most powerful women in Puerto Rico. At one time she led Casa del Artista Puertorriqueño (House of the Puerto Rican Artist), an organization that vouched for the development of young rising Puerto Rican artists. Her controversial tenure, spanning over a decade, resulted in the granting of $500,000 to the organization with which it purchased Teatro Coribantes, a theater near San Juan's Hato Rey financial district. Retirement and death Fernández retired from all activities in the 2000s. She acknowledged suffering from Alzheimer's disease, but 2010 newspaper interviews depicted her as having occasional moments of (very candid) lucidity. She died in San Juan on 9 January 2012 of a septic shock and pneumonia. The government of Puerto Rico declared three days of national mourning for her death. She was buried in her hometown of Ponce at Cementerio Civil de Ponce. Notes See also List of Puerto Ricans History of women in Puerto Rico References External links Picture of Ruth Fernández in Álbum de la Radio (1942) (pg 48)