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Avelar, Lupe, 1946-
Lupe Avelar was born and raised in the State of Durango, Mexico, and since she was little learned from her parents the love for farming and hard work. Lupe relates her childhood with nostalgia and happiness, highlighting how her childhood moments were some of the most beautiful of her life. She grew up in a poor family that solely made their living from the farming of corn and beans. She witnessed her parents make ends meet in any way possible through hard work while staying together as a family and caring for each other.
Person
Avelar, Lupe, 1946-
Lupe Avelar was born and raised in the State of Durango, Mexico, and since she was little learned from her parents the love for farming and hard work. Lupe relates her childhood with nostalgia and happiness, highlighting how her childhood moments were some of the most beautiful of her life. She grew up in a poor family that solely made their living from the farming of corn and beans. She witnessed her parents make ends meet in any way possible through hard work while staying together as a family and caring for each other.
Person
Transcript of interview with Todd S. Polikoff by Barbara Tabach, August 30, 2016
In 2015, Todd S. Polikoff was named the President & Chief Executive Officer of the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas. (The organization is now known as Jewish Nevada). Todd is a graduate of Stockton University and earned his MBA at Cleveland State University. He has three children: Samuel, Shira and Jordan. Born in 1971 to a steelworker and hairdresser, Jack and Judy Polikoff, Todd grew up in Philadelphia, became a bar mitzvah there, and shocked his mother when he explained he was putting college on hold to move to Israel. In addition to stories about these life memories, Todd also traces his career path to decision-making to a meaningful trip to Moscow a where a defining moment helped him understand his own relationship with Judaism. To the time of this interview, Todd has invested over twenty years in leadership of Jewish Federation and AIPAC in states that include New Jersey, Delaware, Texas, Ohio and Nevada.
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Transcript of interviews with Louis Wiener, Jr. by Eleanor Johnson, January-February, 1990
In this multi-part interview, Louis Wiener, Jr. discusses coming to Las Vegas from Pittsburgh at a young age, attending Las Vegas High School and University of Nevada Reno. He attended law school at University of California at Berkeley and passed the Nevada State Bar in 1941. He established a practice, Jones, Wiener and Jones, with Bob Jones and Cliff Jones and later with Herb Jones. He had another practice with Neil Galatz and Dave Goldwater, retiring in 1988. Wiener had other business ventures that allowed him to do pro bono work as a lawyer. Wiener discusses his family, including former spouses, his children, and various aspects of his career as an attorney in Las Vegas, representing hotels in the Greenspun antitrust lawsuit, and as an attorney for Bugsy Siegel. He says of his success, "I'm just lucky. I was here at the right time and I picked the right people to help."
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Vida Chan Lin oral history interview
Oral history interview with Vida Chan Lin conducted by Kristel Peralta, Cecilia Winchell, and Vanessa Concepcion on May 17, 2021 for Reflections: The Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project.
Vida Chan Lin discusses her childhood growing up in San Francisco and her parents' immigration from China to the United States through Chile. She talks about working in her parents' Chinese restaurant throughout her youth and her later move to Las Vegas to assist her sister and brother-in-law. She recalls becoming an insurance agency owner and how she worked to help the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community after the 2008 housing crisis. Lin shares her decades-long mission to find community within Las Vegas, joining every AAPI group the city had to offer until later developing her own; Lin created the Asian Community Development Council (ACDC) in 2015 and was also formerly President of the Asian Chamber of Commerce. The ACDC was developed to provide community support and assistance with voter registrations in Las Vegas. Lin discusses the additional services the ACDC has undertaken during the COVID-19 pandemic, including helping with the census, distributing food, volunteering at vaccine clinics, and purchasing laptops for Clark County School District students to assist with in-home learning efforts.
Archival Collection