Kimiko Fujii Kitayama was a prominent civic leader in Hayward, California. Born in Hayward in 1922, Kitayama was a freshman at the University of California, Berkeley at the outset of World War II in 1941 and was sent with her family to the Topaz internment camp in Utah. She attended Brigham Young University from 1943 to 1944 and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in botany from the University of Wisconsin in 1947. She got her start in Democratic politics in 1948 as a member of the Eighth Congressional District Women’s Club and was active in the Democratic State Central Committee from 1962 through 1974. She served on various local commissions for human relations, public service, and juvenile delinquency and was the president of the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District board from 1975 to 1976. In this interview, Kitayama discusses her family background and education, racial prejudice, World War II and Japanese internment, her political activity in the Democratic party, her service on local boards and commissions, the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District, and her thoughts on women and Asian Americans in politics.