Bringing Stories of Southern Nevada’s Latinx Communities to Life

Since the Latinx Voices project began in August 2018, a group of graduate and undergraduate students overseen by project coordinator and oral historian Barbara Tabach have recorded more than 100 interviews. The interviewees, Latinx individuals representing a wide swath of ages, range in profession from hotel maids to business leaders and include U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-NV, the first Latina in the Senate.

In the taped sessions with student researchers, speakers describe their lives and offer their perspectives on everything from their community's roots in Latin America to its tremendous growth in Southern Nevada. The students then transcribe the interviews, the written records of which are kept in the library’s Special Collections & Archives and will be uploaded online.

The concept was a natural accompaniment to the center’s work on African American and Jewish oral histories, White said. It also provides an important record for posterity about the growth of one of Southern Nevada’s largest demographic groups.

“I think it's the ideal time,” she said of the project. “The Latinx communities are a force to be reckoned with, and we get to see that power, we get to see the magnificence of their contributions.”

The center obtained a $100,000 matching National Endowment for the Humanities grant and has also been supported by a $50,000 grant from the Las Vegas Centennial Commission, $50,000 from MGM Resorts International, and other gifted funds.