Oral history interview with José Luis Meléndrez conducted by Laurents Bañuelos-Benitez on November 20, 2018 for the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project. In this interview, Meléndrez discusses his family background and early life in Baja California. He talks about his father's decision to migrate to the United States, and attending Catholic schools in California, Nevada, and Texas as the family moved around the country. Meléndrez recalls moving to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1990, enrolling at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), and his involvement with the Boy Scouts of America affiliated program, Learning for Life. Later, Meléndrez describes attending the University of Michigan, earning a master's degree in social work, and becoming executive director for the office of Community Partnerships in the UNLV School of Public Health. Lastly, Meléndrez discusses the future of the Las Vegas Latinx community, and becoming a founding member and chair for the Nevada Minority Health and Equity Coalition.
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One day in 2012, UNLV student Lyn Robinson spied a posting on the bulletin board for a photographer for the Sperling Kronberg Mack Holocaust Resource Center. She was an art major with a concentration on photography. She was also had a deep appreciation of the horror of the Holocaust and what the survivors she would take photos of had endured. Thus began a two year project, during which she took photos of over sixty survivors. Her images are preserved at UNLV Special Collections & Archives. Prints are displayed at the Sperling Kronberg Mack Holocaust Resource Center. On September 18, 2014, Lyn shared her work for this oral history recording. She is a native of Florida, daughter of a horticulturist father and pianist mother.
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