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Oral history interview with Juliana Chen conducted by Cecilia Winchell and Stefani Evans on March 21, 2021 for Reflections: The Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project. In this interview, Juliana Chen shares her upbringing in Hunan, China and her experiences as a teenager training to become a professional ballet dancer. She discusses her rigorous training and troupe career that ended when Chen sustained a knee injury. With a desire to try something new while still being able to perform, Chen immigrated to Vancouver, Canada and began practicing magic. Chen shares that although she didn't know anyone or speak English, she practiced her craft and broadened her knowledge by joining professional organizations including the International Brotherhood of Magicians. After winning several magic competitions, Chen performed on the Las Vegas Strip at Caesar's Palace and the Riviera Hotel and Casino. She shares her current professional pursuits, her connection to the Las Vegas magician community, and her thoughts on Chinese culture and cuisine.
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Prior to 1962, Helen Naugle had only visited Las Vegas once in her life while traveling from Idaho to California for a vacation with her husband and her boss. The group made a quick stop so her boss could interview for a position with EG&G and, as fate would have it, EG&G did not hire Helen’s boss. However, they did extend a job offer to Helen’s husband. A month later, Helen, her two daughters, and her husband became residents of Las Vegas, Nevada. Before moving to Nevada, Helen enjoyed singing in super clubs and performing on her radio show, “Melodies from Meadowland” and working for American Machine and Foundry. Upon her arrival in Las Vegas, Helen went to work for Bonanza Airlines before attending real estate school. In 1963, Helen opened her first office, Bruce Realty, and in 1965, she obtained her Broker’s license. She spent the next ten years selling general real estate. During this period, Helen was an active member of the Board of Realtors, as well as an early participant in the Board’s newly formed Women’s Council. Fate would strike again in Helen’s life while she was visiting her daughter at college in Arizona where she read an article in the Phoenix newspaper about a group of brokers who had formed a networking association to sell hotels and motels across the country. As a result of her initial contact with this association, Helen spent the next four decades selling hotels and motels throughout the State of Nevada, including Las Vegas, Elko, Tonopah, and Wells. She eventually became the first woman President of the American National Hotel-Motel Association. The cultural diversity of hotel and motel buyers would provide Helen with opportunities to travel the world and work with buyers from many different countries and cultural backgrounds. It also led to Helen’s membership in the FIABCI (International Real Estate Federation) and her Certified International Property Specialist and Federation of International Property Consultants certifications. Helen was also selected by the Association to represent the Air Force as “Innkeeper Evaluator” for one year. This honor took her to five Air Force bases in the United States and to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines. During Helen’s career in hotel and motel real estate sales, she witnessed the transition from “mom-and-pop” American buyers to the influx of international buyers predominately from East India and Asia. The opportunities for helping repeat buyers and sellers gradually went away, as foreign buyers entered the market and tended to resell their properties to friends and family members from their own countries. During the latter part of her career, Helen found time to give back to the Las Vegas community through her volunteer work helping to establish the Scleroderma Foundation of Nevada. She also served on the Board of Directors of the Downtown Las Vegas Partnership where she focused on public safety in the area encompassing the Fremont Street Experience. Her work with both of these organizations allowed her to draw on her career experience for the benefit of others. Whether it was fate, or as Helen put it, she “just lucked into a lot of things,” one thing is certain - Helen Naugle was certainly a trail blazer for women in the hotel-motel niche of the real estate business, not only in Nevada, but across the nation.
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Oral history interview with Stephen Round conducted by Claytee D. White on October 25, 2017 for the Remembering 1 October Oral History Project. In this interview, Stephen A. Round, a career military contractor, describes his experiences during the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada. Round mentions moving to Las Vegas in 2013 and in later years staying at the Aria on the evening of October 1. He describes the chaos of the shooting and the 12-hour-plus lockdown at the Aria hotel and casino. The day after the shooting, Round built a memorial around the shooting site and protected it. Once the memorabilia of that first site was taken to the Clark County Museum, he moved to protect the second memorial at the "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign where crosses devoted to the victims had been placed. Along with his preservation of the memorials, Round describes his preparation of a book that was signed by many who visited the sites. Round explains that he was able to see some of the best and worst of humanity during those days of watching and caring for the memorial sites as well as helping any victims, families of the victims, and sympathizers of the Las Vegas 2017 shooting.
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The regional subject files include materials collected by anthropologist Katherine Spilde about Native American gaming, Native American communities in the United States, and the US and international gaming industries. The materials date from 1859 to 2015, with the bulk of materials dating from 1990 to 2010. Materials dating from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are a reproduction of a federal treaty and an ethnohistorical essay. The majority of the materials document Native American gaming following the passage of the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. The papers include research and subject files created by Dr. Spilde during her employment with the National Gambling Impact Study Commission (NGISC), National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA), and Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development (HPAIED). The materials document Native American gaming enterprises both on and off reservations, the socioeconomic impact of gaming, the political history of gaming in the US, and international gaming. The series includes socioeconomic reports, testimonies, correspondence, memos, press releases, photographs, audiovisual materials, promotional materials, brochures, fact sheets, summaries, booklets, pamphlets, advertisements, tourism materials, journal articles, legal briefs, legislative documents, court opinions, notes, presentations, conference materials, periodicals, community newspapers, and newspaper articles.
The collection contains documentation on a number of Native American nations, including the Misi-zaaga'iganiing Anishinaabeg (Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Mille Lacs Band); Gaa-waabaabiganikaag Anishinaabeg (Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, White Earth Band); Forest County Bodéwadmi (Forest County Potawatomi Community); Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin; Mashantucket Pequot Indian Tribe; Mohegan Tribe of Indians; Tulalip Tribes of Washington; Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation; Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North and South Dakota; Mandan, Hidatsa, and Sahnish (Arikara) (Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation, North Dakota); and Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. Other communities are also represented in the series, but to a lesser extent. In addition to materials about gaming and casinos, Dr. Spilde also collected documents, photographs, and audiovisual materials about Native American culture in general. The series documents regional and national trends in Native American gaming, and the greater gaming industry. Materials trace federal and state relationships with individual Native American nations, specifically concerning gaming enterprises.
Archival Component