February, 1994 

About the author -

Before I expand on this topic, I will detail some of the qualifications and life-experiences which I believe allow me to speak out with accuracy and authority on these very charged legal and social issues.

I, Charles M. Goolsby, Jr. have made the defense of basic human rights a cornerstone of my life work for over 20 years. A am a man of African-American, Maskoke Native-American, and European decent who respects and intensely celebrates ALL of those ancestral heritages. I thank my parents for providing me with a good basic education and a good compass of moral common sense in this life. Professionally, I am a computer systems engineer with a very large federal computer services contractor in Rockville, Md. I have worked part-time for the Montgomery County Government since 1987. I am currently a part-time civilian information systems support specialist with the County Police Department.

I speak to these issues from the point of view of a veteran of over fifteen years of both paid and voluntary community service work within the Latin-American community of Washington, D.C. and Montgomery County, Md. During the period from 1978 to 1981 I worked actively with many community service organizations, including: Centro Adelante - working with housing and immigration issues; the Latin-American Youth Center - involved in on-the-job training for young people; the School of Rumba -the area's first Latino music school teaching Afro-Caribbean traditional and modern music, where I was a student and then an instructor; and El Centro de Arte, a long-existing focal-point of Latino folkloric music, dance, and theater in the D.C. area. In addition, I have performed with over two dozen folkloric and popular music ensembles in the Latino community. My work with these and other community groups and the many friendships that grew from that work gave my life focus during my twenties, allowed me to serve my community in many ways, and gave me complete fluency in written and spoken Spanish.

During 1980 and 1981, I worked in the production and announcing of radio news and Latin-music programming on one of the D.C. area's first bilingual programs, Salsa De Las Americas on WPFW-FM, 89.3. The "Sauce of the Americas" program combined popular Spanish language music with weekly discussions of issues covered infrequently elsewhere, such as news about Central-America's civil wars.

During this same time period I assisted in coordinating the public-relations, musical entertainment, and logistics for over 30 public cultural events, mostly benefit fundraisers for non-profit Latino community groups. I provided calendar of events information for the Spanish language newspapers El-Barrio and EL-Latino, and for the radio show Salsa De Las Americas. I also produced my own calendar of events newsletter called 'What's Happening This Week,' which publicized non-profit fundraiser events.

Also during the early 1980's, I personally identified over ninety non-profit organizations within the Dupont Circle to Columbia Heights 'Columbia Road corridor'. Seeing a lack of public access to these services, I assisted many organizations, such as El Hogar De La Familia (The Family Place, providing support to teenage mothers), the Ayuda legal services agency, and the Andromeda mental health center by providing more effective distribution for their public-service literature and public calendars-of-events.

My voluntary work with folkloric groups has included those representing the cultures of Bolivia and Chile: with the Andean quartet Rumisonko ['Heart of Stone' in Quechua, an Incan Native language]; Colombia: with Grupo Tyrona, of which I was musical director in 1984, with El Ballet Folclorico de Patricia Medina, and with Colombianos Unidos, a thirty member folkloric dance ensemble of mostly teen-aged members, with whom I performed 14 times at the Expo '92 world's fair in Seville, Spain; the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Puerto Rico: with the folkloric Quintet 'Esto No Tiene Nombre' [This Group Doesn't Have a Name]; and also Ecuador: with the folkloric-dance and music troupe Ruminahui ['Face of Stone' in Quechua]. I have also performed with and promoted many commercial Latin bands.

Since the mid-1980's I have focused on putting-to-work the social-service advocacy skills which I learned in the Adam's-Morgan community of Washington, D.C. to assist Latin-American immigrants within Montgomery County, Md. As a well-known local musician, as a person fluent in written and spoken Spanish, and as a concerned community resident who knows about Maryland human relations and employment law, I have worked hard to help fill a growing void within the local immigrant community.

The void which I try to help fill involves doing my share to improve the quality of life and defend the dignity of a segment of our community who are currently suffering severely under the strains of mass-joblessness, are being locked out of the job-market due to racism, increased immigration law enforcement and other factors, are abused on the job without redress, and have a real lack of access to the legal and social services which they pay for with their taxes just as much as any other ethnic group in our County.

Since 1988 I have assisted six Latin-American immigrant women in beginning formal complaints of race and sex discrimination related sexual harassment and assault before the Human Relations Commission of Montgomery County, Md. I have intervened for, sought legal assistance for, and advocated for victims of sexual assault, sexual harassment, non-payment of wages, and against the widespread use of arbitrary and discriminatory work-place punishments and firings of Latin-American immigrant women in janitorial jobs. These illegal acts have occurred, and still continue to occur, within many private, federal, and local government office buildings located within Montgomery County, Md.

All of my work in Latin-American immigrant victim-advocacy has resulted from victims having approached me seeking help. Repeatedly, the official reaction of cleaning contract companies working within Montgomery County to my polite raising of these issues has been to do the following: 1) silence any discussion of these issues by the use of gross intimidation against the victims and myself, 2) fire or force the victims out, and 3) back-up the actions of the perpetrators, protecting them from legal trouble.

Latin-American immigrant women have thus gotten the message loud and clear on many occasions that they have become a cheap, disposable resource in the American work-place, underpaid, overworked, and often forced into sexual submission while government and commerce knowingly turn their backs.

At this time I have found it necessary to write this report. Since 1988 I have formally presented this information to many persons-in-authority. Time after time, these well-educated, well-paid officials of public and commercial organizations have said "SO WHAT!" 

This report is a substitute for the muffled CRY OF RAPE from victims who are tired of having become the sexual 'cannon-fodder' of America.

- Chuck Goolsby

  February, 1994