Oral history interview with Gene Noboru Nakanishi conducted by Ayrton Yamaguchi, Cecilia Winchell, and Stefani Evans on April 2, 2021 for Reflections: The Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project. Gene Nakanishi shares his detailed family history from both his father's and his mother's families. He discusses his paternal grandfather's work on the Union Pacific Railroad, the family's internment in Wyoming during World War II, and his father's release from the camp by joining the United States Army Signal Corps. Nakanishi also talks of his maternal grandfather who was of the Bushido ("warrior") class in Osaka, Japan, and his grandfather's work with Christian missionaries. He shares details of his mother's restaurant employment in Los Angeles and her opening of Osaka Japanese Bistro in Las Vegas in 1969. Nakanishi also talks about being born and raised in Las Vegas, his musical schooling at Berklee College of Music in Boston, and his graduate education at Harvard University. He discusses his work as a band teacher for the Clark County School District, his involvement in the Idyllwild Arts Summer Program band camp, and his interests in jazz music.

On an unspecified date in 1972, Ronald Johns interviewed Elbert Edwards (born 1907 in Panaca, Nevada) about his life in Southern Nevada. Edwards first talks about his family’s move to Panaca, Nevada in 1864 and talks briefly about his work in Las Vegas public schools during the Great Depression. The two also discuss the Boulder Dam, Edwards’ involvement in politics, and mining in Nevada. He also talks about the cost to build a home in Las Vegas in 1936, the development of Boulder City, and the way of life in the small town of Panaca. The interview then moves on to the topics of the early territorial boundaries of Nevada and Utah, the atomic testing at the Nevada Test Site, and early water sources in Southern Nevada.