Oral history interview with Eric Mendoza conducted by Holly O'Donnell on November 29, 2021 for Reflections: The Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project. In this interview, Eric Mendoza shares his family's chain migration history from Manila, Philippines to the United States and his difficult immigration and naturalization process once arriving in America in 1996. He talks about what brought him to live in Las Vegas, Nevada, his education and professional pursuits, what his life is like in the United States compared to that of the Philippines, and the lives of his eight siblings. Eric Mendoza discusses the historical past of the Philippines, the infrastructure in place there, and government corruption. He also speaks to Filipino traditions and festivals, food and customs, his cultural identity, and assimilating to American culture.
The North Las Vegas Bicentennial Committee Photographs and Drawings of Kiel Ranch document the buildings on Kiel (Kyle) Ranch in 1974. As part of the commemoration of the United States bicentennial, the North Las Vegas City Council elected to restore Kiel Ranch, which was one of the first non-indigenous settlements in the Las Vegas Valley. The materials include black-and-white photographs of Kiel Ranch as it was in 1974 as well as architectural drawings of planned renovations to the main house, the Brown House, the foreman's house, and the ranch hands' house.
On February 28, 1979, collector Monte Leavitt interviewed Gene Leavitt (born October 6th, 1923 in Mesquite, Nevada) at his home in North Las Vegas, Nevada. In this interview, Mr. Leavitt talks about his career as a truck and bus driver. He also talks about the life in Southern Nevada, the soldiers stationed here, and gambling.
The Dennis McBride LGBTQ Poster and Sign Collection (1977-2018) contains posters and signs created by the Las Vegas, Nevada Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer/Questioning (LGBTQ) community, collected by historian Dennis McBride. These handmade and commercially printed signs cover events of particular interest to the Las Vegas, Nevada LGBTQ community, including social events, entertainment venues, political rallies, and Gay Pride events.
It was spring vacation 1971 when Mary Hausch arrived in Las Vegas with four girlfriends. As a Ohio University senior, the closing of college campuses due to anti-Vietnam War protests had given her a reprieve from final tests and papers. The spontaneity of the trip and her enjoyment of the weather resulted in her applying for, and getting, a reporter position at the Las Vegas Review-Journal. For the next nineteen years, she worked her way up the newspaper ladder, covered local education issues that included desegregation, a groundbreaking series of POW-MIA war stories, and the Nevada legislature. She became the first woman city editor and managing editor of the newspaper. Her career journey was not always smooth. It was an era of cultural roadblocks and emerging feminism. Eventually, Mary was passed over for the ultimate appointment of R-J editor and was placated with a short-lived "associate editor" position. She describes the ensuing civil rights complaints and how she segued into teaching at UNLV. During her robust journalism career, Mary's personal life also hit some rocky times, but ended happily when she met and married Bob Coffin, a then reporter for the newspaper. [Bob is interviewed separately for this John S. Park neighborhood series.] The couple bought the Gubler House in John S. Park and Mary describes the charm of the house as well as the neighborhood, historically and currently. Mary was a tireless participant in the efforts to have John S. Park designated a historic neighborhood. This two-part interview paints a picture of a community that has weathered various phases from what she calls the "widow phase" to the "homeless" to the rebirth stirred by new residents. She also offers advice and thoughts for those looking to achieve the historic designation for their neighborhood.
Jerome Jerry Jay Vallen was born and grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father was in the restaurant business and Jerry worked for him throughout his teens and young adulthood. He and his two brothers entertained themselves during their childhood years by going to the library and reading. This was a legacy of the Depression era, when there simply wasn't any money to spare for extraneous expenses. Jerry's first jobs were bellman / assistant manager in a small hotel; auditor, and then property manager at the Pine Tree Point Club. He attended Penn State for a year (working in his dad s restaurant the whole time) and then transferred to the hotel school at Cornell University. After a stint in the armed forces during the Korean War, he returned home and used the GI bill to finish his master's degree. He started on his doctorate, but it would be 20 years before he completed it. After getting married (1950) and starting a family, Jerry and his wife Flossie realized that the restaurant business and family life did not mix well, so he decided to stay in education. Fie spent several summers at the University of Pennsylvania in their graduate school of business and in 1966, interviewed with Jerry Crawford, provost at UNLV. Jerry and his family moved out to Las Vegas in June of 1967, leaving northern New York during a blizzard and arriving four days later in southern Nevada to find tulips blooming. They decided they liked Las Vegas, found a house right away, and settled in to their new life. Jerry taught marketing in the hotel college at the beginning of his career and for several years thereafter. Boyce Phillips took the rooms division and George Bussel taught foods. Their main focus was to attract students, and they worked on making it easier tor students to transfer from out of state. Jerry also thought it was extremely important that the hotel college be independent of university administration control. Dr. Vallen has 5 or 6 books published, including 3 textbooks that he continues to update, and an oral history of the hotel college completed shortly after he retired in 1989. Today he and his wife travel and enjoy twice yearly gatherings with their family.
The Kiel Ranch Preservation Committee Records (1973-2005) document the activities of the North Las Vegas Bicentennial Committee (1973-1976) and its successor, the Advisory Board for Kiel Ranch (1978-1995), in their efforts to restore Kiel Ranch, one of the earliest non-indigenous settlement sites in the Las Vegas, Nevada area. The collection contains various official reports on Kiel Ranch, proposals on how to restore Kiel Ranch, chronological files for each year of the project, and newspaper clippings on the status of Kiel Ranch.
Judge Jack Lehman is living the life we should all strive for - a wonderful family, a work ethic that has allowed him to serve others while enjoying a magnificent life and above all a great love affair with his beautiful artistic wife, Lou Lou. From Chemnitz, Germany, at the beginning of the Nazi reign to a prominent citizen of Las Vegas, Lehman lives an extraordinary Las Vegas life. Born in Germany in the late 1920s, Jack and his sister were sent to the United States in 1935 and after a series of living situations including a orphanage in New York, they were adopted by the Lehman family in Lake Arrowhead, California. As a young boy, he wanted to become a lawyer. After a degree from Berkeley, two tours of military duty, a stint in radio broadcasting, and serving as the Director of the Nevada Department of Economic Development, he entered law school at USC. Lehman's career in the legal field began at the largest law firm in the city - Lionel Sawyer and Collins - and then into private practice and on to the bench as a District Court judge appointed by Governor Richard Bryan. In February 2008, he was honored by judges and friends statewide as the founder of Nevada's Adult Criminal Drug Court Program commonly known as "drug court." Washoe County District Judge Peter Breen said it best, "The state is a much better place because of Jack. All those people came back from the abyss of addiction because of Jack."