Oral history interview with Sanje Sedera conducted by Kristel Peralta, Cecilia Winchell, Ayrton Yamaguchi, and Stefani Evans on April 16, 2021 for Reflections: The Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project. Sanje Sedera discusses growing up in Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon, with his family. He shares his educational history, moving from Sri Lanka to Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia as a high schooler to learn English before immigrating to the United States to attend Idaho State University. Sedera discusses the political unrest and civil war that took place in Sri Lanka between the Tamil and Sinhalese people, and how he grew to appreciate political activism instilled in him by his paternal grandparents. Sedera shares his employment history working as a manager for K-Mart, an opportunity that brought him to Las Vegas, as well as his entrepreneurial pursuits of owning a mortgage business and becoming a realtor. He talks about the financial crisis of 2008 that led to losing his business, his attempts to run for public office, and how he helped to form Nevada's Asian American Democratic Caucus. Sedera concludes with a discussion of his Buddhist practice and how these philosophies have shaped his life.
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.
Ellen DeLand was born on April 1, 1931 and went to Santa Monica High School. She was very active in the Las Vegas LGBT community. She was interviewed January 19, 1996.
In this interview, Molasky discusses her parents, Irwin and Susan Molasky, and growing up in Las Vegas as a member of Temple Beth Sholom. She attended Sunday school and Hebrew school, but is not particularly religious as an adult.
Beth Molasky-Cornell is a partner, shareholder, and an active member of the board of directors of the Molasky Group of Companies, which was founded by her father Irwin Molasky. She is a founding partner and a core member of the board of directors of Ocean Pacific Companies, a high-end real estate development firm founded by her husband Ken Cornell in San Diego, California. Molasky-Cornell contributed to numerous Molasky Group building projects, including the Bank of America Plazas, the Winterwood Corporation land development, and the Park Towers luxury condominiums. Molasky was born in Florida; however, her family moved to Las Vegas before her second birthday. She graduated from Valley High School in 1968, and started college at the University of Southern California at the age of seventeen. After spending a couple of years in Rhode Island, where she had her children, she moved back to Las Vegas in 1975. In this interview, Molasky discusses her childhood experiences in Las Vegas, especially as a member of the Jewish community, and reflects upon changes that influenced her children?s upbringing in the city.
Oral history interview with Hamed Ahmady conducted by Stefani Evans on March 22, 2023 for the Reflections: the Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project. Interviewed by Stefani Evans. Culinary Union Local 226 organizer Hamed Ahmady recalls his childhood as the oldest of six children in Mazar-e Sharif in northern Afghanistan. As an child, he remembers hearing about the September 11, 2001 attack in New York while living in a Taliban-controlled city on a television connected to a concealed antenna that received signals from Uzbekistan. He recalls how, one month after he graduated high school, he became an translator for the U.S. Army, which he did for more than four years. He talks about securing his Special Immigrant Visa (SIV); landing in Los Angeles, California in 2013 and moving his family to the United States; and supporting his siblings and parents in Afghanistan. He also discusses relocating his family from California to Las Vegas, Nevada in 2018, finding a mosque community, and working with Culinary Union Local 226.