Vida Chan Lin was born in San Francisco as the middle of five children--all given Spanish names because the family migrated to the U.S. via Chile. Vida began working as a young child in her immigrant parents' Chinese restaurant, but soon the family opened the first Yet Wah, and the Chan family restaurants eventually numbered eleven in the San Francisco area. Vida moved to Las Vegas in 1993 to help her sister and brother-in-law with legal issues.
Born in New York City, New York to two Korean immigrants, Rob Kim’s life has been one exemplifying dedication to hard work and an awareness of the world that surrounds him. Having spent a significant amount of his childhood working in the various stores his parents owned, Kim saw the sacrifices and labor of his parents as an influence on how he would go on to pursue his own goals.
A street on the Westside is named for Elgin Holbert's grandmother, Viola Cunningham, who was an early land owner. It is believed that in 2002 she donated the property for Madison School now renamed Wendell P. Williams Elementary School. Although from Eudora, Arkansas, a few miles from Mississippi, his parents are a mixed couple, mother is White and father, Black. His mother was treated well in the Westside community but was very private concentrating on rearing her children with little community interaction.
Question 2 was an anti-same-sex marriage constitutional amendment passed by popular referendum in Nevada in 2000 and 2002. This video records a debate among Richard Ziser, director of the referendum's sponsoring organization, the Coalition for the Protection of Marriage in Nevada [CPM], and pro-same-sex marriage activists including Lee Plotkin and his husband, Robert Smith; Vincent Frey, then executive director of the LGBTQ Center of Southern Nevada; former Nevada State Senator and sponsor of legislation overturning Nevada's sodomy law in 1993, Lori Lipman Brown; and Gary Peck, president of the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] in Nevada. The program which hosted this debate was POV Vegas, a half-hour public affairs program which debuted on July 12, 1999, sponsored by the Las Vegas Sun newspaper and broadcast on Las Vegas ONE, a 24-hour local news network which was a collaboration among the Las Vegas Sun, KLAS-TV Channel 8, and Prime Cable [Prime was purchased in 1998 by Cox Cable/Cox Communications], on channels 1 and 39. The general manager of Las Vegas ONE was Robert "Bob" Stoldal. The network operated from April 6, 1998 through January 9, 2010. For the story of Question 2, see Out of the Neon Closet: Queer Community in the Silver State, by Dennis McBride [North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016], pp. 103, 257, 273, 277-302, 309-312. For the history of POV Vegas, see "Sun to Launch Daily Television News Talk Show" [Las Vegas Sun, June 27, 1999]. Oral history interviews with Lee Plotkin and Lori Lipman Brown are depoisited in the Special Collections Department of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. [00:00:00 - 00:26:24]
Archival Collection
Las Vegas, Nevada LGBTQ Collection
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Collection Number: MS-00251 Collection Name: Las Vegas, Nevada LGBTQ Collection Box/Folder: Box 19, Digital File 00
The Margot Mink Colbert Papers (approximately 1959-2018) are comprised of materials that represent Colbert's career as a professional dancer, choreographer, and instructor. The materials span Colbert's career as a dancer in New York City at The Juilliard School, instructor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and instructor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The materials in this collection also document Colbert's teaching career as well as her professional studio Ballet Mink. The materials include press and promotional materials about performances choreographed by Colbert within the United States as well as other countries including Russia and Denmark. The collection also include recordings of Colbert's choreographed performances.
Newspaper article featuring Lucretia Stevens. She moved to Las Vegas in 1923 when the town was about six blocks square and about 60 people made up the black community.