Latinx Voices Unveiled

Savor the flavors found within the kitchens of the Latinx community of Southern Nevada. In this episode, we dive into the aromas and recipes that create ties with one's own cultural roots and across other cultures. Community members such as Javier Barajas, owner, and founder of Lindo Michoacan, and Rabbi Felipe Goodman of Temple Beth Sholom talk about the recipes they grew up with and how they preserve those locally. You'll also hear about the gastronomical traditions of the student interviewers -- from the line of tamale making for Christmas from Mexico to drinking chocolate for las onces" from Colombia.”

What is Latinx Voices Unveiled?

Preserving and sharing the life stories of Southern Nevada’s Latinx residents are important because these individuals and communities have played a significant role in our region’s history but are underrepresented in our historical record. Today, approximately 29% of Southern Nevada’s residents and more than 25% of UNLV’s student body are Latinx. Many Latinx residents have greatly influenced the progress of our educational system, multiple business sectors, politics, and cultural life in Southern Nevada. By collecting and preserving these oral histories, the UNLV University Libraries ensures that the perspectives of our region's Latinx residents are reflected in our collections so that present and future generations can learn and study more about their achievements, aspirations, and experiences.

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This is Clay T. White, director of UNLV's Oral History Research Center. Support for the Latinx Voices Unveiled series is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, MGM Resorts International, the Commission for the Las Vegas Centennial, Mark and Mary Ann Haley, Envy Energy, and the Culinary Workers Union Local 226.

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UNLV's Oral History Research Center presents Latinx Voices Unveiled series. Today's episode is brought to you by the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project, a UNLV libraries initiative to record the marginalized voices of the Latinx community. This series is produced by the UNLV Rebel Media Group. Hello and welcome back to our Latinx Voices Unveiled series where we're exploring the Latinx Voices oral history project. I'm Natalie Martinez and today we are going to explore the flavors of the Latinx community. Today I'm here with Elsa Lopez and Monserrat Hernandez. Awesome, thank you all for joining me. And today we're going to talk about food. Now let's start off with sharing some of our favorite foods of our culture. What did we grow up with? Oh my gosh, okay. I would have enfrijoladas a lot, which it's the most simple thing. It's just tortillas and then beans and cheese. And then I also love green tamales. So those are my top two. With me, my favorite food is hands down my mom's chicken enchiladas with salsa verde. So traditionally, enchiladas are with red sauce, but my mom being from Mexico City, they have a different way of making them and so salsa verde enchiladas are my favorite. And for me, I go straight to my Salvadorian roots and I'm a huge fan of pupusas. I stick with the classic revuelta, which is a mix of meat, which is I think primarily beef, if I'm correct. I just eat them. Beef, cheese, and frijoles. And classic cheese. Those are my two favorite with leucurtillo, which is kind of like coleslaw with some tomato sauce and then extra tomato sauce and mmm, I'm already savoring it in my mouth. So today, we're going to dive into all the different aspects of food and what it is and what it means to our community. So today we're going to listen to a sound clip from Arturo Ochoa, a retired CCSD principal and co-founder of the Foundation to Assist Young Musicians, known as FAYM. And this is his story about how he and his Caucasian wife, Cindy, made their own tradition of making tamales at Christmas and when they first got married and blended their families.

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It was the neatest thing. So, you know, Cindy, even though she is Caucasian, has embraced the culture. As a matter of fact, one of the traditions that she and I started, our first Christmas together, a tradition for Christmas food is tamales. It's a tradition. So our first Christmas that we were together, I told Cindy's children that on such and such a day, make no plans, they belong to me because we're making tamales. And they thought it was child labor and that it was wrong and that they grabbed and groaned but the day came and we made tamales as a family. The following year, right around Thanksgiving, my stepchildren were asking, what day are we making tamales? Why? I want to invite my friends over. 34 years, all of them show up, grandkids show up, spouses of the kids show up, friends of the kids show up. It's this neat thing, for 34 years we've had this humongous gathering where there is no, it's not celebrating Aik Helzer, it's just celebrating us, who we are. It's the neatest thing. So we, our kids are incredible. We have trained them in all aspects of tamal making. We take poetic license, but to me it's a gathering of love. I went by some of the grandkids. They were having this little argument about who had the most experience. Well, I got six years experience making tamal. Well, I've got four years. Well, I got seven years. It was the cutest thing to hear the grandkids. Talking ownership. Yes. You know so it's a neatest thing that all the grandkids, they start as olive boy or olive girl, they just put in an olive into the tamale as it goes down

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the line. But they've all graduated to, they can work any part of the line. They're very capable.

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They're very well educated in Tamal making.

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It's a mastery thing.

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It's...

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You know, they... My wife is... We're both educators. My wife is very much into the game playing. Whenever we get a new person come and survive a Tamal making experience with us, they get an actual certificate that they are, that they have earned the certificate by their performance on such and such day. We have a little ceremony where we're giving their certificate. So it's a cute thing that we embrace what we are.

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He talks about how it was a way that he embraced his culture and united two different cultures through tamales. What does that mean to you when it comes to seeing food as a way to unite cultures? I can really resonate with his story about making tamales. It's definitely something that brings together family. There have been times where I've invited friends of mine who are not Mexican to come in and have some food. Specifically, whenever I go to Arizona, we have my extended family, one side of which they're American, so they get to come in and during Thanksgiving, they make turkey, and then we make tamales verdes, and we get to have it all, and just, you know, it's really nice because when you think of the dinner table, it's a place where everyone can come together, and we can share foods and stories, obviously. So yeah, it's appreciation, and I think it's really cool that in a time where like we're navigating appropriation versus appreciation, these kinds of things that come up, this is one way that I'm like, yeah, this is definitely appreciation and it feels good. It feels right. Me personally, I know exactly what he's talking about when he talks about the line and how they're working the line. And so usually like you'll have someone set up the leaves and then someone does a masa or the dough to make tamales And then you have like your beef and your salsas. I remember the first time I brought my boyfriend over to make tamales He's from El Salvador. So he he's had tamales but not like Mexican tamales like that So when he saw the process and how long it took us it's very intricate and very complicated And so when he saw the process and when he was making them with me and my family, he's like, okay, I have a whole other respect for, you know, Mexican tamales. And so I completely understand where he comes from, Arturo, when he says that it was a way of blending their families together and making their own traditions.

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Absolutely.

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No. And Monse, you talked about how Art and his wife were making new traditions to unite their cultures and unite their families. So let's talk about how food is a tradition and how it plays a role in our community in developing these new customs that we practice every year, whether it's a noche buena or a de quince or a de cumpleaños. So let's talk about how sharing food recipes is a way of passing down our culture. Here we have Eloisa Martinez, a Las Vegas small business philanthroper. Let's listen to how she makes tamales and how they have to be made traditionally or you risk the danger of losing your culture.

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Well, first of all, Cinco de Mayo is my big day. I mean, I could celebrate for three days as far as that's concerned. We celebrate because we were all born American. We follow the American, but we don't forget the Latino Navidad. That's the day I make tamales. Ooh, two days, man. We're in there making those tamales. My son's a fisherman in Alaska. And he's coming Monday, I think. Yeah, he's gonna be here Monday. So he tells me before he wanted me to go, he said, Mama, why didn't you come here? I'll send you for the ticket and you can come here, but don't bring any clothes. I said, it's 100 degrees Fahrenheit. What do you mean no clothes? Well, the only thing you've got to bring is hojas and chile and all that thing so you can make my tamales. He could care less if I froze, right? But he says, I'm coming. Do you think you can make tamales before? I said, I will, Mijito. You know I will. So I'm going to make him some tamales. I'm going to freeze him. So if I freeze him, put in a certain little cooler, he could probably take it back. You know, because it doesn't take but one day to get there. You know, so that'll be fine. But I think that is, he loves those tamales. And he likes the cheese tamales, which are rajas de chile verde. You know, the green. That's the kind that he likes. He likes the chicken. He said, I'm not that crazy about the sweet ones, but the kids like the sweet ones, you know. So, and then I make a chili rojo con carne de puerco, you know. So, I make all four, and it's a process.

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It's a process.

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My daughter says, why can't you get those little machines? I said, you're losing the culture. And she learned how to make them. She saw me so many times, she said, Mom, I'm going to surprise you last year. She said, What? I don't want you to be here. You go do everything because I'm going to... By the time I come back, you're going to have something. I'm going to surprise you. So she did. I had made the arena and I put it in the refrigerator and she probably, Oh, I don't have to do that, but I know how to make it. And she did the chicken, she did, oh, she did a good job. You know, she soaked the leaves, so that was good. So that means that they picked up on things, right? Because I'm not gonna be around tomorrow. Well, I hope so, but not tomorrow. I gotta wait till next week.

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My kids are gonna be here.

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So she talked about how it takes, she talked about it takes two days, first of all, to make tamales? So it depends on how many you're making.

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Okay.

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How many you're making, how much time you have. But I would say roughly from prepping to the actual cooking, it can take anywhere between like seven to ten hours. And I understand where she meant like it can take up to two days because you can do it in sections and prep everything beforehand. And so I Completely understand what she's coming from especially if she's doing it on her own Which it almost sounded like sometimes she gets some help But I know that whenever I have like the ends who get help then you're right It might be like a couple hours, but if not, then it's definitely a long process Well, yeah, and as you can tell I'm learning here with all of you Just a quick question. Why are the sweet ones pink? Because they put food coloring in it. Oh, okay, just to make it special. Yeah, just to make it special. And to, and so like they'll add sugar and then my mom also adds jelly, like strawberry jelly, so that also changes the color. And I think that's something that Eloisa talks about as well in regards to passing down those recipes. So do you plan on making them with jelly too and sharing that with your family, with your future kids? Yes, definitely. Like I mentioned before, my boyfriend, when he had our tamales, his favorite ones were the sweet ones too. I personally don't like them. I think they're too sweet, but he can eat like sometimes even, because they're smaller, he'll eat five or six in one sitting because he's like, these are amazing. I'm like, okay, if you like them, I guess I'll learn how to make them too, you know? And so it's really incredible to be able to share your culture with someone. Yeah. Why do you think it's so important? And this is a common theme that we see in the Latinx community. Why do you think it's so important that you learn your family recipes and keep that tradition alive through food? Why? Well, I think personally, because I have so much love and appreciation for my Tias and or like just whomever made food when I was growing up. It was these celebrations. I mean, I think I cannot stress enough how, like how exciting and like just, there were so many people there. And with all these people, I've made many memories and I definitely want that to continue on. So, you know, if I ever have kids, I want them to experience that too. But how can they if I don't put a little bit of effort into continuing on that tradition? Yeah, I think it's important to learn your family recipes because to me personally, when I eat food that my family made, it feels like home. And if I'm like somewhere else, and I can try Mexican food or Tex-Mex food and stuff, but it never really like tastes like home until I have food that either my mom or my sister made or when I go back to Mexico and I'm with my extended family like that feels like home, the food I'm eating with them. And so it's to me passing down recipes is important so that you you keep your home alive I guess you can say. So now you mentioned home, we're going to talk more about how Rabbi Felipe Goodman follows that same dogma and seeing food as an indicator of home. And in this audio clip, he shares his childhood memories of growing up in Mexico City, the types of street food he ate, and the kosher adoptions his family made.

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Look, I had a very, very shielded childhood, but I also grew up at a time when Mexico was a beautiful country still. No crime, no violence, no drug traffickers, none of those things. I mean, of course, the usual corruption, the devaluation of the peso, the economical woes and the roller coaster. But I grew up at a time where I would go to the park and I remember getting balloons from the balloon vendor at the park that would walk with a hundred balloons in his hand and listening to the accordion player at the park and buying all of these Mexican candies that I'm sure no American could ever eat in their life, like tamarind with chile and jicama with chile powder. Chamoy, of course. It all goes back to food, no. But I also remember being able to walk in Mexico City and ride my bike everywhere I wanted to. I remember the summers, I was not like a summer camp kid. I would just stay home and I would ride my bicycle with my neighbors all day long. We would go and we would eat a different food every day, a different torta, sand, that kind of stuff. It was really great. And what was uniquely Mexican Jewish, so growing up like a Jewish kid in Mexico City, so for example, a lot of food that we ate as Jews was actually Mexicanized. So for example, when my grandmother used to make gefilte fish, she used to make it Vera Cruz style. Right, which she would take the gefilte fish and basically fry it in a tomato sauce with capers, olives, potatoes, and chili, and tomatoes. And it was fantastic. And I remember that very, very fondly. My wife's home, I mean, I dated my wife since she was 16, I was 19. I would go to her grandmother's home every Sunday. She kept a strictly kosher home, but we would have mole de olla and quesadillas and everything. It was really integrated through the food in a tremendous way.

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Now he mentioned street food. What can you all tell me about street food in fancy restaurants. The whole idea of street food is that they're food that you can find with vendors on the street. And the best Mexican tacos are always gonna be the ones from a lonchera or from a little taco stand. You don't have to go to nice restaurants to have good quality tacos. Usually like that somehow makes it not authentic and they try to like jazz it up and it's like no, just keep it simple right? Keep it simple and you'll have authenticity, right? And I really really liked what he said that like he would just ride his bike and go across the city and eat all this like different street food and there was like no I guess like boundaries to like what he can eat or what he can explore in the city and I think that's beautiful. Now listen to Rabbi Goodman one more time and hear him share about why Las Vegas is home to him now and how he feels nostalgic when he eats his food and misses Mexico but can still go to the store to buy these authentic Mexican products here in Vegas?

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Las Vegas is my home for many reasons. First of all, I have lived now in Las Vegas almost as long as I lived in Mexico City. So I lived in Mexico City 23, 25 years. I've been here for 21 years. And the missing years are at the seminar in New York City. So my memories from Las Vegas are equally as powerful as my memories from Mexico, they're later in my life. But I know people here that have shown me tremendous kindness. My congregation by and large has shown me tremendous kindness for all sorts of things. They've been grandparents to my children, they've been tremendous friends in times of need, and wonderful friends in times of joy, I really feel like this is my home. By the way, look, I could go to Cardenas and just buy everything I want that reminds me of Mexico. Including like, I mean, I never was, when I was in New York, there was just no Mexican food in the supermarkets, right? We sold Puerto Rican products. Here, I mean, I can go and buy like tamarind jarritos, like a schmitz, come on, right? So even if I felt nostalgic, even if I felt like, I always go back to food for some reason, right? Because that's how you were raised, with that food in your palate. I always feel like there are things about Mexico that are comfort things about Mexico that are here with me. And therefore I don't miss it that much, right? Of course I miss part of my family, I miss my wife's family. But if I left Las Vegas today, I would miss the people that are here too. And that's one of the things that has kept me here, right? I had opportunities to leave and I really never acted upon them because I am very happy and I'm very comfortable here.

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So he mentioned Cárdenas. What can you all tell me about Cárdenas? So with me, my family moved here from Los Angeles. And in Los Angeles, you can pretty much go across town and, you know, still find stores that sell your food, right? And so when we moved here, we moved to the west side, and the closest store that had anything that my family would eat was Carvanas. And so that's the store that my family pretty much took ownership of. Like, when we moved here, that was the store where we would go buy our groceries and go buy, like, everything for the house. And so I remember walking in and it was like I was in L.A. all over again. I was like, oh, these are my people. Yeah, I definitely agree. I love how when I would go to the grocery store with my parents, there was a chance that I'd take my friends there, too. Going to Cardenas or La Bonita or Super, all these different places. It's just so great knowing that our community can find what they need. And when you were talking about coming from LA to here, I feel like I had the completely opposite experience where I moved to Las Vegas from Colorado. And in Colorado, there's, well, we don't have this stuff. Going back to what you said about how the community goes to all these different places, how they're always packed and so and how the these grocery stores welcome the community is wonderful. Rabbi Goodman talks about it too and saying how he feels like he could never leave Vegas because of the community he's built here. And I think that's something that that we see in these interviews is how the community here is so tight knit, especially the Latinx community specifically and how everyone knows one another and how that's especially how why this project has grown so much. We just get new names every single time we do an interview. You know this person? Do you know this person? They would have a great story to tell and they would love to be in this project. And so the community here is absolutely fantastic. And it all goes back to, as he says, it all goes back to food and how it's a way to really share our culture. I know for me specifically with whenever I would go to Mariana's growing up it was always when and even now to Cárdenas and you can actually find it now at Walmart. Chocolate Abuelita. It is the, I'm gonna I don't know if it's Mexican. I've written Mexican originally. Yes, so it's Mexican equivalent hot chocolate. Yeah equivalent to like Nesquik I guess. For my family my mom and I we would Colombianize it and so what we do and what I love to share with everyone is chocolate con queso. What? Yes okay so. Continue. I know it's. I'm intrigued. Yeah same. Let me tell you about the beauty of chocolate con queso. So in Colombia, that is traditionally what we have for onces, I think. I'm pretty sure you'd have for breakfast. That's what I do. I do it for breakfast for any time I have chocolate, actually. Again, you have like a paleta, which is like a bar of chocolate. You put it in the olleta, which has a unique shape to it, and you put it in there with milk and then you just grind it up. And this is just explaining the process of how to make chocolate. And then when you serve it, when it's nice and hot, you take mozzarella cheese, I use just regular string cheese, and I just string it up and put it inside. What? Yes, and you let it sit there for a while so that it melts. And you just let it sit there and it adds a little hint of salt to the drink itself. You have to make this for me. Yeah, I will, I will, absolutely. And then you can get a fork or a spoon and you just dip it in there and you just watch it, the cheese just eloquently rise from the cup and just, because it's all melted and it's chocolatey too. Like a beautiful white cascade? Yes, that is, you couldn't have said it better myself that is exactly what it is and then you can eat that up as you're drinking your chocolate though and you just use one little bite as you're drinking it and It's great. My dad hates it, but my mom and I love it And now as I'm sharing my traditions of chocolate con queso It shows how food is also where to share your culture and we see that in the businesses in the restaurant businesses here in Las Vegas. Let's hear a little bit from Javier Barajas, owner and founder of Mexican gourmet restaurant Lindo Michoacan on Desert Inn. Here, he talks to his business partner about how this new restaurant is going to introduce Las Vegas to quality Mexican food.

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Well, when I told you that I went a little bit before, I mean, what I used to tell Richard before I opened the restaurant, I said, Richard, my restaurant is going to be different because I'm going to teach everybody what real Mexican food is. Because if you notice, I even told Richard, I said, see the menu, Richard? Burritos, I mean, they don't have no steak or chickens or different dishes like beef tongue, like mole, like a lot of seafood. I mean, in Michoacan, seafood is very popular, I say. And I wonder why they don't have a, I mean, and I want to make the tortillas by hand, too, you know. So, so, Lindo Michoacan is the restaurant that came to Las Vegas and told everybody, you know what, Mexican restaurant is very expensive. Mexican food is very, you know, we have a lot of steaks, we have a lot of chickens, we have a lot of seafood dishes too, you know. Can I ask a question here?

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Camarones, it's not Indiadas, it's my favorite dish here. Okay. But who is Tia Esther?

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Oh, she is the one that teach me the recipe. So she's your aunt?

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Yes.

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Okay.

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She's my dad's sister. Because I have a few recipes from my mom and a lot from the seminar from the nuns.

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And he talks about how there's a variety of different recipes and dishes in Mexican food and how he planned to share that with the rest of the community. It's not just tacos and burritos. He mentioned mole. What else? Beef tongue. Yeah. And if I can, oh yeah, I was gonna, I wanted to comment on that because recently I had this experience with, where my mom, she bought beef tongue because like she makes tacos de lengua, which is like what it's, that's what it's called. And I had my partner over and he was like, what's that? And I was like, I told him and it didn't even occur to me that like people from other cultures because he's not, he's not Mexican people from other cultures would probably, I mean, I don't know if this is an assumption, but they wouldn't get it.

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So for me, for a long time, I wouldn't eat them because I knew his tongue. Right.

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And I remember this one time I told my mom, like, Hey mom, like, I'm hungry. Like, are you going to make something to eat and she's like oh I have I have she said carne stewing right like I have meat stewing I was like okay stewing yeah like stewing like in oh okay yeah in in the pot right and she's like I'm gonna make it right now I'm just prepping it I was like okay and so I waited and she made me like these tacos and I ate it and I knew it was like a different texture and I was like I was like mom these are like super good what are they and she's like she's like some is carne I'm like, but what kind of carne like you haven't made this in a while like I haven't like tasted She's like it's a lingua and I was like, I'm too committed And so like I finished them and I knew in my head I'm like on the lingua on the lingua and like I always like because like seeing it like it gives me the heebie-jeebies And so like actually eating it at first without knowing and then realizing what it was. I'm like, I'm committed, this is good. I'm just gonna like phase it out. You kind of just have to be open to the experience because

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if you're not open-minded, you're not really gonna, you know, experience anything in life.

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No, yeah, I had the same experience with sopa de pata. Yeah, so it's literally, it's exactly what it is, like sopa with a foot, like it's literally the foot of chicken feet right? Yes, there's several different kinds because I've had there's one where I've seen the actual like like the hoof of like a cow I saw that but yes there is like sopa de pata with like the chicken feet and it's literally the feet and I was like oh my god this is like a witch's groove or something like it was like there's feet in here with the nails and everything and and I promise it's Santerio and it's actually really, really good. And so, like, I totally get what you're saying, when you say that, like, if you're not open minded you can't really, like, branch out into really learning about these different cultures. I spoke with my other friend Enrique, I did a project studying Mexican food and how it plays a role in staying connected to your roots. And my friend Enrique said that what's great about Mexican food and Mexican recipes is that you deal with what you have and you make something great out of it. So let's talk about some Colombian restaurants and talking about some of those Colombian recipes. Here we have Olmedo Hoyos, owner and founder of Colombian restaurant Oiga Miravea. And here, he's talking about the process of starting up his restaurant to convert it from what was originally a Mexican restaurant to a Colombian restaurant.

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I bought it broken. I was going to close it, but since I was still open with a few customers, my sisters trained with the Mexican food that he sold. To sustain those customers, and gradually we were changing it. What did we do? We stayed with those few customers and we put all the Colombian food. Good advertising, which in fact resulted in so much family here that I did not know that I had so many family members here. When I first started, I put my ad on the world television. Family, I opened my first Colombian restaurant in Las Vegas. I said, look, look, look, and I got a family.

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He's talking about how he was able to take a struggling restaurant and turn it into the prosperous Colombian restaurant it is today. What do you all think about that? In Las Vegas, there's already a ton of Mexican restaurants, and there's not enough of other restaurants from other Latin American countries. And to have the first, like from this, you know, struggling restaurant, you got a prosperous Colombian restaurant. I think that's great. I think he did a great service to the community, a great service to the Colombian community, because even though they might be small, they're still here, and they should be able to feel what I feel when I see a Mexican restaurant and walk in and have the food from their homeland. For other people to have that experience, I feel, is very important. And I really, truly admire Olmedo for doing that service to his community, to his patria. Similarly, I give major props to all of these pioneers who decided that they needed to be the first ones to open these restaurants because I'm sure that once the first is up, shortly after, people will come to find that there is a need for these places and then smaller ones can pop up. But I can understand how it'd be really rough. So to put your family's recipes out there to the public, to let them judge you, and then to let them, ultimately, it seems like for a lot of these people, they were able to reach great success. I think that's so beautiful. No, I totally agree. And I think that's something that we see, like one of the great Latinx values is family. And so I think, and we've talked about that throughout this discussion is how family recipes, our roots, our home, all of it, and how we stay connected to all of that through food. I think that's absolutely, like you said, beautiful. And the fact that he was able to start this up as his family and how he was able to bring all these different flavors and items from from Colombia to Las Vegas. You walk in and you can buy typical snacks that you can find over there or chocolate colombiano. So like the abuelita version of chocolate in Colombian version. In every culture you have them as in El Salvador their pastel is I think they're in Mexican culture too. It's shaped like a half half circle and it's filled with it can be filled with cheese it can be filled with... Pica de Hilo. Pica de Hilo. What's that? Pica de Hilo is ground beef with corn, not corn, ground beef with carrots and papas. Oh yeah it can be stuffed with that for sure. Yeah and then you fry them right? Yeah what is that called? Those are called if I'm not mistaken some quesadillas in Mexico. Oh so yeah I think that's something really cool that you can find a different version of this almost same recipe all across Latin America. So in a way we're all different we all have our different flavors our different recipes but we're still all very connected in a way. So even though you all have your your Mexican roots and your Mexican recipes and I have my Colombian and my Salvadorian recipes we still have we're still connected and I think that's something that's really cool and I think that Olmedo did a great job of sharing his culture especially when he was able to share it in El Mundo which is a local Spanish newspaper run by Elia Escobedo and I think it's awesome that he was able to use that community here that we have that Latinx community to help him market and share this new flavor that he was bringing to Las Vegas. And yeah, so we've gotten to hear a little bit about the flavors that make up the Latinx community and the various members of our community that show the value of food in our culture. Well, thank you for joining us in our conversation of comida and all the delicious flavors that make up our Latinx community here in Las Vegas. And a special thanks to Elsa and Monza for joining me today.

0:34:53
Oh, thank you for having me.

0:34:54
Yeah, thank you.

0:34:55
Awesome. And make sure to join us next time when we talk about art and the artistic and creative side of the Latinx community in Las Vegas. Thank you for listening to Latinx Voices Unfelled series. Each episode features smaller parts of larger interviews with community members. These interviews were conducted by research assistants at the Oral History Research Center. To hear these interviews in full, contact UNLV Special Collections and Archives at 702-895-2234. Special thanks to Yoni Kessler for our theme music, and to performing musicians Ricardo Arana, Tasos Paltekis, Marshall Peterson, and Spencer Pfeiffer. Audio engineering by Ron George.

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Production engineering by Kevin Kral. Production engineering by Kevin Kral. This podcast is a production of KUNV radio and the UNLV Rebel Media Group.

Transcribed with Cockatoo