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Oral history interview with Adela Montes De Oca conducted by Laurents Banuelos-Benitez on December 06, 2018 for the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project. Adela Montes De Oca discusses her early life in Mexico and describes her childhood as a happy and festive one. As an adult, Montes De Oca aspired to be a teacher, but could not due to financial hardship. She shares how this affected her life and influenced her career choice, instead becoming a social worker. Montes De Oca recalls what she learned after spending twenty years working with children in Mexican orphanages. In 2003, Montes De Oca decided to move to Las Vegas, Nevada to join her family who had immigrated years prior. She discusses her immigration and her new career in Las Vegas. She shares her views on the importance of unions and her experiences working with the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 as an event organizer and union manager.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Margarita Rebollal conducted by Marcela Rodriguez-Campo and Barbara Tabach on February 28, 2019 for the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project. Margarita Rebollal is a lifelong community organizer and advocate for Latinx civic engagement and rights. She shares what it was like to grow up in Ponce, Puerto Rico and shares her childhood memories growing up on the island with her siblings. Rebollal also discusses the death of her father and the eventual move of her family to New York City, New York. She also recalls her education and teen years. Later, she would move to California, and eventually find her way to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1996. Rebollal discusses her passion for civic engagement and the many years serving the community, being most well-known for her role in founding the Puerto Rican Association of Las Vegas and the Hispanic International Day Parade of Nevada. Rebollal also discusses her campaign for the Ward 1 Las Vegas City Council seat.
Archival Collection
With a liveliness of a man decades younger, Harry Kogan looks at his 100th birthday with cheer and satisfaction. Born March 11, 1916 to poor Russian immigrant parents in the Jewish ghetto of Philadelphia, Harry vividly recalls walking to school shoeless, with no hat or no raincoat. A treat would be his mother handing him ten-cents to go to the theater and enjoy a silent movie. After graduating from high school in 1933, Harry quickly took one of the rare jobs available in a garment manufacturing company where he worked his way into being a skilled and valued fabric cutter-a job that paid $35 a week. Harry was raised with two brothers and lived in Philadelphia for the first 91 years of his life before moving to Las Vegas. One of his brothers learned the refrigeration business while enlisted in the Navy and after the war formed a commercial refrigeration business named Kogan Brothers. Harry is a philosophical and philanthropic man. He was slow to retire and traveled the world, took classes and donated to his favorite causes; among which are the Boys Town Jerusalem and the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas. He sat for this interview to honor his Jewish roots, to share his life experiences and spending the past years in Las Vegas.
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