Oral History interview with Kuni Kunimi Hironaka

Nisei male, born in 1921 in Brighton, California to farm worker parents. Prior to evacuation at age twenty-one, Kuni was placed in a tuberculosis sanitarium in Weimar, California while his family went to Pinedale Assembly Center, then Poston, Arizona. In 1945 he was escorted to the Presidio in San Francisco for a formal release from Weimar. It was not until 1980 that he learned the significance of a barbed wire fence around the Weimar facility: he and other Nisei patients were under control of the War Relocation Authority. Kuni reports positive acts toward Nisei. The Italian farmer who hired his parents after internment later sold the farm to Hironakas at the low original price to accommodate their limited income. As an employee at McClellan Air Base, Kuni initiated an inquiry as to why Asian Americans were not promoted as other ethnic groups were. The result: Asians were included n the promotional ranks under the base�s affirmative action program.