Japanese-Brazilian Anderson Hyuma Gushi remembers his troubled youth, when he was bullied by classmates at an elementary school as a "foreigner with a Japanese face."

He eventually dropped out of his evening high school classes and became the leader of a group of hot-rodders, encountering violence, discrimination and jail time.

But Gushi now draws on his difficult past to mentor Japanese-Brazilian children who are experiencing the same problems he did 10 years ago, hoping to guide them toward a brighter future even though the economic downturn is hitting Japanese-Brazilian communities hard.