On the corner of 7th street and Clark, and beside the tennis courts of Las Vegas Academy, stands the law office of attorney Eva Garcia Mendoza. Eva has worked in her office since 1982, and in this time she has helped the Las Vegas community work through civil and immigration cases besides aiding in a myriad of other ways. Eva Garcia Mendoza was born in 1950, in the town of McAllen, TX-an environment that perpetuated hatred of Mexican Americans. Eva recalls the racism she endured; for instance, being spanked if she spoke Spanish in school, and her family facing job discrimination because of her skin color or her last name. Being an ethnic and financial minority was difficult, and Eva remembers nights as a child when she would cry herself to sleep. Eva showed resilience in the face of adversity as she states, “you rise to the level of your teachers’ expectations.” With the encouragement of her band professor, Dr. L.M Snavely, she began higher education at Pan American College. She moved to Las Vegas in 1971 and began to work before being accepted at UNLV to study Spanish literature. She graduated in the class of 1973. In 1975, Eva applied to become a court interpreter, a decision that would drastically change the trajectory of her career. She earned the coveted position and began to work beside Judge John Mendoza who was the first Latino elected to public office in the state of Nevada. Several years later John and Eva would wed. Judge Mendoza passed away in 2011. Eva talks about how extraordinary his legacy is-from his professional achievements to a story about his v football days and the 1944 Dream Team, this true story even piqued the interest of Hollywood writers. Through her work, Eva began to notice how she was more than qualified to become a lawyer herself, so she applied and gained a full ride scholarship to the Law School of San Diego University. Eva describes the struggles of attending school in San Diego while her spouse and children were home in Las Vegas. Despite the financial difficulties, being one of few minority students, and becoming pregnant her second year, Eva was able to finish her remaining university credits by returning to Las Vegas and working with Judge Mendoza. Together, they started the Latin Bar Association. Eva began her own practice in 1981 and would later partner with Luther Snavely, who was the son of her band teacher that helped her to attend college so many years back. Today, Eva has a new partner at her office and hired her son to work as a secretary. Eva also tells of the office’s mysterious history, of which includes a ghostly figure many clients claimed to have seen in the reception room. Eva recounts many of her professional achievements, such as petitioning to start the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Nevada Chapter, representing celebrities, winning the unwinnable cases such as against the Nevada Test Site. Eva talks about current events, such as today’s immigration laws, the discriminatory practices of revoking birth certificates from those born in Brownsville, TX., and about the importance of the #MeToo movement. Eva and her family have a great fondness for Las Vegas. The support for the Latinx community in Las Vegas greatly contrasts that which she experienced as a child in southern Texas. She describes wanting to take her children and grandchildren to visit her old home in McAllen, TX where her family grew up on the “wrong side of the tracks.”

“My very first car… Oh, boy, I can't remember the year. It was old. But it was a [Chevrolet] Monte Carlo. Oh, my gosh, I was so excited. . . . It was my pride and joy. I'm a teenager, right? It was freedom. That's what it was.” It might seem incongruous that the aviation director for the nation’s eighth busiest airport ranked by passenger volume would begin an oral history rhapsodizing over the freedom her first car represented. But despite the powerful role she occupies professionally, Rosemary Vassiliadis remains true to her Chicago upbringing in a tight-knit Italian family, in which she was the first female on both sides to go to a four-year college. Rosemary attended nearby DePaul University, where she earned her degree in accountancy. Shortly before she graduated she was a bridesmaid for an Italian friend whose Greek Orthodox groom had asked Billy Vassiliadis to be his groomsman. Over the three days of the wedding Rosemary and Billy became acquainted and began a long-distance courtship that continued for nearly nine years before Rosemary finally agreed to marry Billy and make Las Vegas her home. This oral history chronicles Rosemary Vassiliadis’s Las Vegas career from financial analyst with the City of Las Vegas under Myron Leavitt to working with Randy Walker at Clark County to working with him again as deputy director of aviation at McCarran Airport; she shares how both men mentored her, and how their teaching has in turn inspired her to mentor younger women leaders. She talks about managing the airport in the six days after the Nine-Eleven (9/11) Terrorist Attacks, during which time Walker, who had been attending a conference in Montreal, was grounded there when all North American airports closed; she talks about working cooperatively with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority to transport tourists once the other airports opened, and she confides her determination to get her New York passengers home first so they could learn the fates of, comfort, and draw comfort from their loved ones. She walks listeners through the process of planning for Terminal 3, including financing it during the downturn, selecting its art, and seizing the opportunity to thank President Obama in person for making Terminal 3 possible-a “thank you” that resulted in an autographed photograph of the aviation director with the President as they stood on the tarmac in front of said terminal. While Rosemary’s ideas of freedom and transportation have likely matured since she bought her first gas guzzler in Chicago, she has acquired a firm grasp on what it takes to run the eighth-largest passenger airport in the U.S., which in 2017 serves the second-most popular U.S. travel destination (after New York City, according to TripAdvisor). Las Vegas is lucky that Rosemary agreed to serve as her friend’s bridesmaid and to eventually say “yes” to the persistent (and patient) Billy Vassiliadis. In 2017, Clark County School District recognized the couple’s many contributions by establishing the Billy & Rosemary Vassiliadis Elementary School.

On March 3, 1979, Norwood Germany Jr. interviewed Daniel A. Moore (b. 1939 in Fort Worth, Texas) about his life in Las Vegas, Nevada. Moore begins by speaking about his move to Las Vegas from Utah at a young age, his education and his work in construction and at the Las Vegas McCarran Airport. Moreover, Moore speaks about his involvement with church and his recreational hobbies such as bowling. Moore also spends time speaking about the African American population in Las Vegas, the jobs available to them, racial tensions in his young adulthood versus his children’s experiences, and the segregation of black communities into the Las Vegas Westside. Lastly, he talks about the city’s growth, tourism and the economy, the development of different shopping centers and malls, and the city’s law enforcement.

The Kim Sisters, composed of three sisters, Sook-ja, Ai-ja, and Mia, came from Korea to Las Vegas in February 1959. Their first contract in America was to perform at the Thunderbird Hotel for four weeks as part of the China Doll Revue, the main showroom program. This engagement led to a successful career. Their popularity reached was at its height at the end of the 1960s when they performed throughout the United States and Europe. Sook-ja Kim is the oldest of the sisters. After his sister Ai-ja died in 1987, Sook-ja teamed up with her two brothers and continued to perform until 1989. Now semi-retired from show business, with occasional performances in Korea, she is working as a real estate agent. In this interview, she talked about her childhood, her career, and the family she has built since coming to America. Sook-ja was born in 1941 in Seoul, Korea as the third child of seven in a musical family. Her father was a conductor and her mother, a popular singer. After the Korean War, her mother arranged to send the Kim Sisters to America. When they came to Las Vegas, there were virtually no Koreans in the area. They depended on each other to take care of themselves. Some of the difficulties they had to adjust to in American were language, food, and cultural differences. Over the span of almost forty years in America, Sook-ja became acculturated without discarding her ethnic identity of family priorities. Her life-long guiding principle has been to adopt certain American values while continuing to keep her cherished Korean ethnic values. Through their performances, the Kim Sister informed the audience about Koreans and their culture. As the oldest of the group, Sook-ja was entrusted the care of her sisters, and later her brothers, the Kim brothers. Once she settled in Las Vegas, she brought more than forty members of her extended family to the city, contributing to the growth of the Las Vegas Korean community.

A resident of Southern Nevada from the age of three, Susan Watson shares her memories of growing up and living in Las Vegas. After a year in Boulder City, Susan's father bought an old army barrack and converted it to a home in North Las Vegas; Susan remembers playing in the desert with her siblings and attending elementary and middle school before starting at Rancho High. Watching her mother design costumes for Strip performers and beautiful dresses for her own high school dances no doubt helped Susan develop her own sense of taste and style - something that she would put to good use over many years as an interior designer. Before that though, Susan shares her memories of what life was like in the Las Vegas of the 1950s and 1960s: cruising Fremont Street; movie nights; after-school work; favorite teachers; lunches on the lawn; and dance club. All combine to paint a vivid picture of a smaller town and a simpler time in the Las Vegas valley.

In this interview, the Torjmans recall meeting at Temple Beth Sholom and their careers in Las Vegas. David Torjman was a Hebrew School teacher at Temple Beth Sholom, and later became a dealer at the Rainbow Club and Tropicana. Iris was a health aide for the Clark County School District.

In 1964, a young Hebrew school teacher was recruited to teach at Temple Beth Sholom. Soon he met Iris Schwartz who had moved to Las Vegas to live with her aunt. Less than two years later David proposed to Iris in Jack Entratter's suite at the Sands; had a New York wedding and then a local wedding thrown by the Sisterhood at Temple Beth Sholom. The couple came from distinctively different Jewish backgrounds. David was born and raised in Morocco and was educated in trades at the ORT Vocational School in Fez, Morocco. He then studied at Sunderland Talmudical College in England before immigrating to the United States. Iris was a native of Bronx, New York. And tells how before the couple met in Las Vegas that they actually lived within blocks of each other in New York. She moved to Las Vegas to live with relatives as a young woman. In 1964 destiny brought them together. David?s career as a Hebrew school teacher brought him to Temple Beth Sholom, a career that lasted for three years. He then worked for Jerry Hory?s Hock Shop and later became a dealer for the Rainbow Club and the Tropicana. Iris worked for the Clark County School District as a health aide. They have been successful investors in local property and enjoy their retirement. They tell the story of meeting and creating a life in Las Vegas where they raised their three children.

Joy Snyder, born and raised in Pennsylvania, is the daughter of Jean Dasinto and stepdaughter of Ray Hunt. Though she was raised thinking she was an only child, she shares that as an adult, she was contacted by an aunt who gave her information about an Austrian half-sister. The half-sister had tracked the family through WWII records on her biological father! Joy was raised in a very large extended Italian family (her maternal grandmother was first-generation Italian) and became the first in her family to attend college. She had decided early on that she wanted to be a nurse and chose to attend Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia. She recounts memories of her earliest work there, which began the first week of school. After graduation from nursing school, Joy married her childhood sweetheart, William (Bill) Snyder. They made the move to Las Vegas in 1978 and Joy found work right away at Desert Springs Hospital. She worked there about six months and then took maternity leave after the birth of their second son. When she returned to work, it was at Sunrise Hospital (early 1979) in the newborn nursery. Joy comments on many aspects of her career, including the informal approach to health care, the effects of desert climate on mothers and newborns, and the changes she has seen at Sunrise Hospital. She also comments on adoption practices in Las Vegas, drug-addicted babies, and cultural attitudes that appear during the birthing process. Today Joy is retired and her husband Bill is close to retiring. They feel a strong connection to Las Vegas (Bill has a school named after him), but maintain a second home in New York for their trips back East to visit friends and family. They also keep up with various community activities, including book clubs and running clubs for the children at William Snyder Elementary School.