Luis Eduardo Rumbaut—lawyer, writer, editor, and musician who left an indelible imprint on the Latino communities of Washington, DC, and a beloved father, brother and friend—passed away on June 28, 2025 at Washington Hospital Center.

He was born in Havana, Cuba, on October 27, 1949, where he was educated at the Colegio de Belén. He was 10 when he came to the United States in 1960 with his family of seven, who spoke no English, with $450 and a handful of cardboard suitcases. He graduated from St. Pius X High School in Albuquerque, NM in 1966—where he scored in the 99th percentile on the PSAT and was named a National Merit Scholar. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis, and a J.D. from Antioch Law School in Washington, DC, assuming leadership positions and excelling every step of the way.

While still a law student, he began his career at Ayuda—a newly formed organization with a mission to provide legal, social and language access services to low-income immigrants in the DC region—serving as one of its founding directors until 1980. For two decades thereafter he worked in the DC Office of Corporation Counsel, from Senior Counsel to Director, Civil Branch, Enforcement Division. After retiring from government service, he worked creatively as the Director of the Latin American Folk Institute in DC, assuming a wide range of roles. Concomitantly, beginning in 2004, he founded and edited single-handedly a bilingual online newsletter, La Alborada, with an international audience, putting out 5 issues a week for more than a dozen years, a herculean effort that entailed curating political, economic and cultural news across Latin America, with a focus on Cuba, and writing all of its keen editorial content.

All the while, from his college days at WU, but especially from the moment of his arrival in DC in 1972—he formed and played in multiple bands, playing chiefly Latin music with the tres (cubano) and occasionally the cuatro (puertorriqueño), at regional events and locales but most frequently in the Adams Morgan and Columbia Heights areas of the city. (As time passed, they renamed the band with a humorous flair: the first was “Esto no tiene nombre;” later, when they joined government service in the ‘80s, they called themselves “Los Funcionarios;” and the last was “Los Olvidadizos.”) Decade after decade he was recognized for outstanding and unselfish service in promoting the welfare of the Spanish-speaking communities of DC, as well as Public Service Awards for excellence in government service and individual superior achievements. To all of his endeavors he brought his multi-talented and patented mix of brilliance, wit, humor, humility, humanity, love of his native land, and an unswerving commitment to justice.

He will be deeply missed and long remembered by the countless many who knew and loved him, and whose lives he touched and enriched—above all by his daughter Jazmín Beatriz and his son Luis Ernesto; his five siblings, Rubén and his wife Irene, Carlos, Miryam, Carmen, and Michelle and her husband Steve; his madrina Carucha and his ahijado Rubén Darío; eight nieces and nephews, six cousins, and a larger extended family.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations in his memory to Ayuda, the organization with which he launched his career, to advance the legacy of the life-changing work to which he devoted his life. Please go to: https://give.ayuda.com/campaign/702973/donate .