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Robert A. Lynn oral history interview

Identifier

OH-03289

Abstract

Oral history interview with Robert A. Lynn conducted by Lisa Gioia-Acres on January 29, 2007 for the UNLV @ 50 Oral History Project. In this interview, Lynn discusses his background, education in Las Vegas, Nevada, his parents and siblings, his military career, and his professional and work training that prepared him for his first position as a groundskeeper at UNLV in 1986. He continues to discuss his career at UNLV as he rose from groundskeeper to Ground Facilities Supervisor, mentioning various project highlights, construction projects, and his supervisory style that helped create a close-working team.

Archival Collection

Emily Ku oral history interview

Identifier

OH-03884

Abstract

Oral history interview with Emily Ku conducted by Jerwin Tiu, Cecilia Winchell, and Stefani Evans on December 16, 2022 for Reflections: the Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project. In this interview, Ku decribes growing up in a Mandarin-speaking household and celebrating traditional Chinese holidays. Ku recalls her education at the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied political economy of industrial societies and became involved with the United States Department of Commerce during an internship. She recounts moving around several times before settling down in Las Vegas, Nevada, doing remote work as a market analyst before ending up working on the Commission for Minority Affairs. She talks about her experiences there, as well as her current position with the City of Las Vegas as a management analyst. Ku also talks about some of her community involvement, thoughts on personal identity, her favorite foods, and what she hopes to see from the AAPI community in the coming years.

Archival Collection

Michael Chin oral history interviews

Identifier

OH-03885

Abstract

Oral history interviews with Michael Chin conducted by Jerwin Tiu, Cecilia Winchell, and Stefani Evans on December 20, 2022 for Reflections: the Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project. In this interview, Chin describes growing up in a largely Americanized household. His paternal grandparents immigrated from China and owned a laundry shop that his father worked in as well. Chin discusses his education and his interest in creative writing, including editing the school newspaper and writing an a cappella blog with his friend while in college. After graduating, he worked at the John Hopkins Center for Talented Youth as a resident assistant before getting into a graduate program and obtaining his MFA.

Archival Collection

Simon Lamsal oral history interview

Identifier

OH-03887

Abstract

Oral history interview with Simon Lamsal conducted by Jerwin Tiu, Cecilia Winchell, and Stefani Evans on December 16, 2022 for Reflections: the Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project. In this interview, Lamsal describes growing up in Kathmandu, Nepal, and growing up with his grandparents. After graduating in Nepal, Lamsal applied to college in the United States and started in Arkansas studying computer science but later relocated to Las Vegas, Nevada and continuted at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Lamsal describes joining CSUN, the National Millenial Community, and investing in his community. Currently, he is in graduate school and an information technology intern at MGM. Thoroughout the interview, Lamsal touches on a number of other topics regarding finding community, cultural foods, and family life.

Archival Collection

Luceanne "Lucy" Taufa oral history interview

Identifier

OH-03886

Abstract

Oral history interview with Luceanne "Lucy" Taufa conducted by Jerwin Tiu, Cecilia Winchell, and Stefani Evans on December 16, 2022 for Reflections: the Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project. In this interview, Taufa describes growing up on the Tongan island of Vava'u in a large family and later immigrating to the United States. She recalls her father first immigrating to Hawaii, and after obtaining a green card, her and her siblings following shortly after. While Kaufa's older siblings continued to pursue higher education and her younger siblings were too young to work, she took on a bulk of the responsibility to provide income and navigate life in Hawaii for her family. Eventually, Lucy moved to Dallas, Texas, met her husband, and moved to Las Vegas, Nevada for her husband's job. Later in the interview, she discusses joining the Culinary Union after experiencing racial discrimination at her workplace and her pride in her identity as a Tongan woman.

Archival Collection

Judy Roen Smith oral history interview

Identifier

OH-03258

Abstract

Oral history interview with Judy Roen Smith conducted by David G. Schwartz on October 27, 2003 for the UNLV University Libraries Oral History Collection. In this interview, Smith, the daughter of Allard Roen, talks about growing up in Las Vegas, Nevada. She discusses the family home on the golf course of the Desert Inn Country Club Estates, her parents' determination to keep their children outside the casino environment, and the few memories she had of visiting the Desert Inn Hotel and Stardust Hotel for special occasion dinners or family-friendly shows like Jack Benny and Danny Kaye. She also discusses her early education and the relatively closed circle of friends whose parents also lived on the Country Club grounds. She shares stories about her parents, some of her father's associates, and her conviction that no one in her circle of friends ever talked about a Mob influence on the city. She also discusses the family's move to La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, California, where she finished high school, and going to work in marketing for the casino trade.

Archival Collection

Coleen York Wilson oral history interview

Identifier

OH-03272

Abstract

Oral history interview with Coleen York Wilson conducted by Claytee D. White on June 4, 1996 for the African Americans in Las Vegas: a Collaborative Oral History Project. In this interview, Wilson talks about growing up in Fordyce, Arkansas before moving to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1953 at the age of eighteen. She mentions that her parents had moved to Nevada in 1940 to work at Basic Magnesium, Incorporated (BMI), living in a trailer before returning to Fordyce two years later. She then discusses moving to Las Vegas to join an older sister and relates that she did not remember any discrimination in seating or eating meals during her bus trip. After this, Wilson lists the jobs she held in Las Vegas before her retirement in 1984, including work at the Las Vegas Cleaners, serving as a school crossing guard, and working as a housekeeping supervisor at the Stardust Resort Hotel, the Hacienda Resort Hotel, and Circus Circus Hotel and Casino before taking a job at the Nevada Test Site. She also talks about her family, her church activities, and her regret at not attending college.

Archival Collection

Shirley Allen oral history interview

Identifier

OH-03305

Abstract

Oral history interview with Shirley Allen conducted by Nancy Hardy on June 21, 2003 for the Las Vegas Oral History Project. In this interview, Allen discusses moving to Las Vegas, Nevada with her family and starting dancing professionally while attending university. Her first job was at the Riviera in 1964, working as a showgirl. She explains that the work was not difficult and they were not asked to do anything inappropriate, but they did have to pay for their own cocktail dresses and accessories. She also explains that she was a "covered dancer" in the beginning but by the late 1960s she had to "uncover" (work topless) to be employed. She then talks about working in Pzazz! '68 at the Stardust Resort Hotel and Casino, after auditioning for Fluff LeCoque, Donn Arden's company captain. She also talks about her impression of Miss Bluebell and Donn Arden. She spends some time talking about what life was like backstage, relations between the girls, and meeting celebrities, her first experience with topless dancing in Lido de Paris, and how the backstage dressing areas were assigned and the difficulty of fast changes between sets. Later, she talks about things that can go wrong, from forgeting choreography to the more serious issue of the HIV/AIDS epidemic that swept through the shows in the 1980s.

Archival Collection

Gerry Gauthier oral history interview

Identifier

OH-03303

Abstract

Oral history interview with Gerry Gauthier conducted by an unknown interviewer on June 23, 2004 for the UNLV University Libraries Oral History Collection. In this interview, Gauthier talks at length about his experiences as an Army infantryman in the Philippines and as a survivor of the Bataan Death March and subsequent internment at camps in the Philippines and Japan. He first describes his upbringing and education in Michigan and his desire to enlist in the Army in 1940. He then describes his experiences of war, capture, and internment and his release after three years and five months of captivity. He also talks about his life after the war, from the extensive period of hospitalization and rehabilitation to his marriage and thirty-five year career in the U. S. Postal Service. Finally, he discusses his retirement and move to Henderson, Nevada in 1997.

Archival Collection

Pat Feaster oral history interview

Identifier

OH-03306

Abstract

Oral history interview with Pat Feaster conducted by Claytee D. White on July 1, 1996 for the African Americans in Las Vegas: a Collaborative Oral History Project. In this interview, Feaster relates how her mother made the decision to leave Fordyce, Arkansas for better economic opportunity and moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1942. She describes travelling across the country, living in a one-room structure in the Westside of Las Vegas, and attending the Westside School. She discusses her mother's employment at the Red Rooster Restaurant and then at the Algiers Hotel. She talks at length about her own educational journey after leaving school at fifteen, then returning for her GED and later, a college degree after the birth of her fifth child. She discusses how the decision to improve her education helped her develop a twenty-six year career at the Clark County Health District. She also discusses the Fordyce Club and many important personalities in Las Vegas' Black community.

Archival Collection