Hattie Canty was born and raised in St. Stephens, Alabama. She moved to California as a young woman to seek employment, and married and started a family. Canty's family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in the late 1960s and she found work as a maid for the Thunderbird Hotel and later the Maxim Hotel and Casino. Canty became a Culinary Union Local 226 member. Over the years, she became involved in securing better salaries for women and increasing the number of African Americans in high-paying positions in the casino industry.
Person
Pablo Macias was born in Carlin, Nevada, a small town 20 miles west of Elko, where the local population of Latinos was small. He has lived in Las Vegas since 1990.
He is the youngest of nine children born to Sofia and Tomas Macias, who met and married while living in Utah. Tomas was born in the United States and worked as a railroad laborer. Sofia was Mexican born and found work as a maid to help provide for their family.
Person
Oral history interview with Virginia Mendoza conducted by Marcela Rodriguez-Campo on December 6, 2018 for the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada oral history project. In this interview, Mendoza recalls her childhood and early years in Michoacán, Mexico. She shares the story of her immigration to the United States, detailing the harsh conditions she and her daughter encountered crossing the board at Tijuana, Mexico. Mendoza shares what it was like to live in California before she traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada to reunite with her husband in 1989. In 1990, she joined the hospitality industry and began working for Fitzgerald's Hotel and Casino and recalls her experiences working in Las Vegas. She details why she joined the Culinary Workers Union Local #226 and the importance of her job as an organizer, particularly as a bilingual individual.
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