Search Results

Ethiopian business owner Mahamed Youssouf became an American citizen in 1986. Born in Harar, Ethiopia, he recalls the hardships he had to endure during the Ethiopia-Somalia conflict. Coming from a family of tailors, he began making clothes with his father at a very early age. Mahamed’s recollections concerning his journey from political refugee to successful businessman demonstrates his resilience and determination to overcome obstacles and achieve his goals. Mahamed moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1985, where he rented a storefront in North Las Vegas. The name of his store was Uniform Plus and he focused mainly on making children’s clothes. His efforts proved lucrative as he began buying wholesale in Los Angeles, California, and selling clothes in Las Vegas on the weekends at the outdoor Swap Meet. After a fateful encounter, Mahamed became business partners with Eugene Hoffman, owner of Village East Cleaners. Mahamed firmly believes that communication is the key to socio-economic success. He views education as an investment and states that, “to have dialogue means better relationships.” When the Ethiopian government was overthrown, Mahamed returned home to Africa for a visit. He met his wife while there, got married, and started a family. Mahamed returned to America and bought a family home in Las Vegas. He dedicated his time to teaching his American born children more about Ethiopian culture and taught himself more about American culture— including the African-American experience in Las Vegas, racism, the Moulin Rouge, and the Westside.

This ability to greet each day with a challenge has laid the foundation for a long history of success for Elaine McNamara as she has navigated through local beauty pageants, an illustrious real estate career, serving on the Las Vegas-Clark County Library board during their decade of expansion to authorship. Her story of resilience starts when she became ill at approximately seven or eight with erythema nodosum that impeded her ability to walk for five months when she started collecting pictures of movie stars. Her favorite movies were any of Roy Rogers, Abbott and Costello, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Her family moved to Las Vegas, where she attended Las Vegas High School as well as UNLV majoring in elementary education and minoring in language arts. While she attended high school, she studied modeling in the evenings to help overcome her shyness and to become more outgoing. Becoming more involved with local and state beauty pageants, she met the likes of Phyllis Diller, Natalie Wood,

Gordon Smith was born in Utah, but moved with his family to Babbitt, Nevada in 1947. His father, a barber, moved the family to Las Vegas in 1955. In this interview, Gordon recalls school and after-school pursuits; changes in the town; summer jobs; and college. He also talks about his military service and returning to Las Vegas to take up the razor himself - starting a successful barbering business of over 30 years.