Oral history interview with Judith Lee Johnson Jones conducted by Claytee D. White on February 22, 2007 for the Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project. Johnson Jones discusses winning a contest that allowed her to be a showgirl at the Sands Hotel and Casino when she was seventeen, receiving a college degree in Houston, Texas, and performing in the Elvis movie “Viva Las Vegas.” She also talks about her twenty-nine-year career in education.
Oral history interview with Joseph Kine conducted by James Greene on December 19, 1974 for the Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas. This interview covers the early days of Boulder City, Nevada from the perspective of an old-timer. Mrs. Kine is also present during the interview. They discuss education, home, and family life, in Boulder City.
Oral history interview with Jacqueline MacFarlane conducted by Claytee D. White on February 04, 2010 for the Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project. In this interview Jacqueline MacFarlane discusses her early childhood in Las Vegas, Nevada, her move to rural Nevada because of the Great Depression, her move back to Las Vegas, and meeting her husband David MacFarlane, an Air Force Cadet, at the Nellis Air force Base. She then discusses family life, Las Vegas in the 1950s and 1960s, and the various jobs she held on the Las Vegas Strip.
Oral history interview with Ethel S. Hatch conducted by P. Kohlman on November 24, 1975 for the Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas. This interview covers the history of Las Vegas from 1939 to 1975. Mrs. Hatch also talks about ranching in Nevada, Rex Bell, development on the Strip, the first hotels, and early local shopping culture. The interview concludes with discussion surrounding tree-lined streets, the Helldorado Club, and Fremont Street.
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.
Oral history interview with Eric Mendoza conducted by Holly O'Donnell on November 29, 2021 for Reflections: The Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project. In this interview, Eric Mendoza shares his family's chain migration history from Manila, Philippines to the United States and his difficult immigration and naturalization process once arriving in America in 1996. He talks about what brought him to live in Las Vegas, Nevada, his education and professional pursuits, what his life is like in the United States compared to that of the Philippines, and the lives of his eight siblings. Eric Mendoza discusses the historical past of the Philippines, the infrastructure in place there, and government corruption. He also speaks to Filipino traditions and festivals, food and customs, his cultural identity, and assimilating to American culture.
Celia Strauss describes her family history in Poland and fleeing the Nazis, narrowly escaping being captured or shot several times. She and her family came to the United States in 1947.