Oral history interview with Reika Sun conducted by Kristel Peralta on June 21, 2021 for Reflections: The Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project. Reika Sun discusses her childhood in Shanghai, China during the "one-child policy" and her upbringing by nannies while her parents worked. She shares how her family immmigrated to Las Vegas in 2009 to reunite with Reika's aunt and how Reika moved to Kansas to attend an English as a Second Language (ESL) program at Kansas State University. Reika also talks about her restaurant employment history after returning to Las Vegas, her membership in the Culinary Workers Union, and Chinese traditions and superstitions she grew up learning.
Walter Leland Catlett was born to a locally prominent San Francisco, California family in 1889. He won his first stage role as a thirteen year-old in a comedic opera; this early stage career lasted over twenty years. He moved to Hollywood in the early 1920s to make films and by 1930 was in demand as a character actor. After a foray behind the camera, directing a series of comedy shorts for RKO, Catlett returned to acting. His film career spanned another thirty years and 163 films. Catlett died in 1960.
Series II provides a history of the Ronzone family, mostly through newspaper clippings and photographs. Thirteen black and white photographs depict scenes in turn-of-the-20th- century mining towns in Alaska, possibly including Nome and Sitka. Bertha and her husband A. B. "Ben" Ronzone were originally in Alaska during the gold rush between 1900 and 1904 before they came to Nevada; these pictures were taken just after that time. Six other photographs in this series feature Ann, Dick, and Bertha Ronzone in social and other contexts. There are also newspaper clippings about Bertha Ronzone and the rest of
the family, telling the story of their pioneer years in central Nevada and their migration to and success in Las Vegas. Finally, there are various obituaries for Dick Ronzone, a list of possible Ronzone relatives, and some personal programs and ephemera from funeral and other personal events.
Archival Collection
Ronzone Family Papers
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Collection Number: MS-00509 Collection Name: Ronzone Family Papers Box/Folder: N/A
Mike Pinjuv sired one of Las Vegas’s early families after arriving in 1917. Mike Pinjuv arrived in Las Vegas via the Union Pacific Railroad and brought Ivan Pinjuv and his family to town (although Mike’s sons do not know the familial relation between the two men). Mike and his wife, Frances Malner, raised six sons and two daughters to adulthood through World War 1, the Great Depression, and World War II. The oldest five brothers attended Las Vegas High School, while Fred, the youngest brother, and the two sisters attended Rancho High School. In this interview, their three younger sons recall how they, their parents, and their siblings navigated the social and physical changes in the Las Vegas landscape. Over the near century that the Pinjuv family has lived in Las Vegas its members have contributed to the city in countless ways. In the early years Mike owned a gas station and a grocery store and worked several jobs before going to Nellis Air Force Base as a civilian. Of the Pinjuv sons