In 1965, Chilean-born Mariteresa Rivera-Rogers (b. 1943) and husband Enrique Rivera set out on their adventurous leap and moved to the United States. Sponsored by an aunt living in Las Vegas, their resident visas took only three months to process—a task that would take years in today’s world she explains. Their first home was on Convention Center Drive, though they and their four children would experience several different neighborhoods over the years.

Stavan Corbett’s ancestral legacy is a criss-cross of Mexican roots through his mother’s side with Russian and Polish Jew on his father’s side. He was named Steven at birth, and later altered the spelling to Stavan as a recognition of the blending of his cultural backgrounds. Though he has a tanned Latino look, he did not learn Spanish until electing to study it in high school. His mother and his grandparents saw assimilation as a better path for their future and that of the next generations.