The Dennis McBride Collection on Las Vegas, Nevada LGBTQ Organizations (approximately 1984-2008) contains photographs, magazines, and documents relating to various LGBTQ organizations and events in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photographs of prominent community members, including Strutt Hurley, William "Bill" Schafer, Rob Schlegel, and Dennis McBride attending events such as National Coming Out Day and pageants organized by the Southern Nevada Association of Pride, Inc. (SNAPI). Also included in the collection are magazines, newspaper clippings, and documents relating to various issues such as Nevada's "Question 2", a ballot measure that prevented same-sex marriages from being conducted or recognized in Nevada; offical reports on the AIDS epidemic; and student organizations like Students for an Equal America (SEA) and Human Understanding Despite Differences Lifts Everyone (HUDDLE). This collection also contains digital scans of some of the photographs in the collection.
Session 1: Interviewed by Marcela Rodriguez-Campo. Barbara Tabach also participates in the questioning. Session 2: Interviewed by Rodrigo Vazquez. Monserrath Hernandez also participates in the questioning. Patricia Vazquez was born and raised in Las Vegas, NV and shares her experiences growing up in the Valley as a Queer Latina. At a young age, she remembers traveling back and forth between Mexico and the U.S. to visit family. When she started school she shares how her home language, Spanish, became her family's "secret language" as she began to learn English. During elementary school Patricia was tracked into the special education program, and remove from the mainstream classroom. She would find her love for learning in books and libraries as she taught herself how to read in English. Despite being tracked into less advanced courses, Patricia would end up taking AP/ Honors courses in high school after forging her favorite teachers signature, which changed her educational trajectory. After coming out to her family, Patricia went nearly a decade distanced from her mother and continued her college education at Arizona State University. There, she would complete a bachelors in painting and a masters in comparative literature. Her work with the Chicano Studies program at ASU helped her develop her Chicana identity and begin her involvement in social activism. In Las Vegas, she worked to fight for marriage equality and LGBTQ rights with the American Civil Liberties Union , and later with the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada. She also conducted several lectures for the Latino Youth Leadership Conference on sexuality, gender, and homophobia for over a decade. She has served as an English Professor at the College of Southern Nevada for the last 20 years and is an avid hiker, traveler, and painter.