Monica Omura was at a loss when her son, Masashi, 7, began ignoring her. It's not that he became rebellious. He just couldn't understand what his mother said to him in Portuguese — their native language.
"I got freaked out when I realized he doesn't understand our language," the 25-year-old Omura said. The second-generation Japanese-Brazilian speaks little Japanese.
The two came to Japan in 2003. She has since been working at factories where most of her coworkers are Brazilian and Japanese proficiency is not a requirement. As a single parent, she has little time to learn the language either.