Interviewed by Monserrath Hernández, Nathalie Martinez and Rodrigo Vázquez. Irene Cepeda is a woman dedicated to serving the Latinx as well as all minority groups in education in Southern Nevada. As a Las Vegas native, she grew up alongside the Latinx community here and is a proud Latina from Nicaraguan roots. She is dedicated to uplifting the Latinx community through her work with the Latino Youth Leadership Conference and college access specialist at Nevada State College. Now, as representative of District D on the Clark County School District Board of Trustees, she seeks to tackle the issues the district faces from acts of White supremacy to a lack of funding for English Language Learner families.
After serving as a nurse in World War II in Hawaii, Okinawa and Japan, Dorothy returned home to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. She experienced a particularly bad winter and she set out for California but stopped in Las Vegas to visit the family of her traveling companion, a girlfriend from her home town. The girlfriend returned to Wisconsin and George applied for a nursing license and got it within three days. She never left. Dorothy met her husband while working the night shift at Clark County Hospital. He would come in regularly to assist his patients in the births of their babies. Their occupations and their service in World War II drew them together in a marriage that has lasted over fifty years. From 1949 to this interview in 2003, Dorothy George has seen Las Vegas grow from a town that she loved to a metropolitan area that is no longer as friendly. She reminisces about the Heldorado parades, family picnics at Mount Charleston, watching the cloud formed by the atomic bomb tests, raising six successful children, leading a Girl Scout Troop, and working in organizations to improve the social and civic life of Las Vegas.
Patricia 'Pat' Merl plans for college did not materialized after graduation from a New Jersey high school in the late 1960s. Instead she took a receptionist job. The by the age of 19, it was her interest in dance classes that would lead her to audition to be a professional dancer for the Rockettes of Radio City Music Hall fame. Her days and weeks were filled with rigorous rehearsals and performances, but it was also an exciting time for a young and spirited girl. A side trip to Las Vegas in 1971 during her first ever vacation opened her to a new world of possibilities for a professional dancer. So without a job, she decides to remain in Las Vegas and explore the options. It became the beginning of a wide and varied career in the live entertainment industry. Pat's dancing resume includes working in many of the Las Vegas chorus lines of the 1970s, provides a flavor of what the work was like then and how it changed during the era. She includes the story of Frank Rosenthal and
On February 26, 1980, collector Russell Oakes interviewed beautician, Myrtle Hancock (born January 1st, 1921 in Craig, Colorado) in her residence in Las Vegas, Nevada. This interview covers the narrator’s occupational experience as a wardrobe dresser in the entertainment industry in Las Vegas. She also discusses family life, life on a ranch, Downtown Las Vegas, Helldorado, and Nevada’s hot weather. The interview concludes with a discussion on the development of Las Vegas and the projected future growth.
Oral history interview with Gloria T. Caoile conducted by Vanessa Concepcion and Stefani Evans on November 18, 2021 for Reflections: The Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project.
Gloria talks about her immigration from the United States to the Philippines with her family when she was a child and how she lived there until the age of 16. She describes her upbringing and family's values that led her to pursue activism within the Asian American community. Gloria shares stories from her three decades of activism and community outreach working with the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, local labor unions, and other organizations to uplift Filipino Americans within Las Vegas and the United States.