Leonor Matsumoto: Local perspective of the war
When WW began, Lenor and her family were living in the diverse, farm town of Lomita. Lenor, age 6 in 1939, was a very young child throughout the course of the war. Her memories of Lomita and the changes the city endured however, remain vivid in her memory.
Coming from a large farming family, they did not have an abundant source of money. Her family lived in a house currently located at 250th and Narbonne ST. As her mother worked at Van de Kamp Fish Cannery in San Pedro, she would take the greyhound bus to work, and the kids would walk to school. Lenor began elementary school around the time of the war at Lomita’s only elementary school where Lomita Magnet Elementary presently is. Lenor vividly recalls the multiple “Mom and Pop” general stores in Lomita, one in particular, that would allow farmers to put things on credit.
Lomita was entirely fields and farms pre-WW2\II, and even coined the “celery capital of the world”, known for the production of celery and strawberries. In a farming community, the Olmeda family was very closely integrated with many Japanese families. Lenor’s closest friends at school were Japanese, as well as many of their close family friends.
When the war began, those living in Lomita were very frightened. Lenor recalls having to hide many times as a child due to bomb threats, and remembers her outside playtime and activity being very minimal. Lomita grew quiet with the war, as Executive Order 9066 was enforced. This order was established by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1942, authorizing the deportation of Japanese-Americans, and all those perceived as a threat to national security. Lenor’s most vivid memory is a day when no one expected anything, and large trucks came to remove the Japanese-Americans from their homes, “treating them like cattle”. Her Japanese friends lived just across the street, and she recalls peaking her head out the window, seeing absolutely everything just dumped on the sidewalk outside their homes. Some families even buried the money they had on their properties before the left. Not only was there these social changes, but economic changes occurred as well. For all the citizens at home, played a role in the war as well. Food rationing took place where each family recieved a limited amount of food stamps, depending on the size of the family, for commodities such as sugar and flower. Getting sufficient meals, was always a struggle in such a large family, however it became increasingly difficult with the war. Also, with many of the men away at war, they needed a larger workforce and they relied more heavily on the women and teenagers. Two of Lenor’s sisters, went to Narbonne High School, and were pulled out of school to work at the Telephone Company in LA due to their high GPAs and the need in the workforce.
Lenor Olmeda Matsumoto was born June 30, 1933 and is currently 83 years old. She was born in San Pedro, CA, and later moved to Lomita where she experienced the changes of WWII. Lenor comes from a family of nine children, where her father served as a farmer and her mother worked at Van de Kamp Fish Canery. She is currently married to Light Matsumoto, and has two daughters.
The small air base, Lomita Field, was active during the war. It is currently the location of the Lomita-Torrance Zamperini Airport.
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Although Lenor doesn’t remember much about Pearl Harbor, VE-Day and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, these events weren’t portrayed clearly to many American citizens - especially the Lomita residents. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, HI, the Lomita citizens knew little of what had actually occurred amidst the rapid rumors. Americans were much left in the dark when it came to the actual facts of these severe, deathly events. In addition, Lomita played a role in a training area for the war, just across from Pacific Coast Highway. Lenor and her brother, Arthur, used to go over to the training areas and collect the bullet shells laying in the fields from the drills. This field was just alongside a small air base, Lomita Field, operated by the Air Transport Command.
After the war, Lomita, was awakened with a population boom. This caused a shift in the school boundary lines, and Lenor switched to Torrance Elementary school, located on the campus of Torrance high - currently the Annex building. She later went to Narbonne High school, studying during the fall and spring, and working on her friends farms in the summer.
Lenor got married to Light Matsumoto, having met in Harbor City, where he was visiting from Oahu, HI. Due to Mr. Matsumoto’s living circumstance, he was not relocated or treated the way many Japanese-Americans
were in California. However, it was after the war, and after he married Lenor that he faced the cold, prejudices the war had left. One of the Matsumoto’s largest struggles was purchasing a house after the war. Many people were uncomfortable with letting a Japanese man purchase or rent one of their houses. The tension among the Japanese, African-Americans, and Germans, followed the war for several years.
When the war was over in 1945, many Japanese returned to Lomita; however, some did not as they had nothing to come back to. The way of life returned to how it was before, as the Japanese people often did not want to talk about their experience at the camps. They wanted to forget what happened entirely. Slowly, Lomita grew to become more industrial and less agricultural, and slowly the prejudices from the war diminished. Under the Japanese-American Claims Act, a compensation of $20,000 was awarded to many of the Japanese-Americans that were interned in California. Although this sum was awarded to almost all Japanese-Americans in California served as a formal apology, it could not give these people back their dignity, time lost, and their lives they lived before. It is significant to capture the voices that can show the detrimental effects of the war, as well as the progress we have made since then. It is through these voices, that we begin to gain