By NORIMITSU ONISHI

TOYOTA CITY, Japan - Facing labor shortages back in 1990 but ever wary of allowing in foreigners, Japan made an exception for Japanese-Brazilians. With their Japanese roots, names and faces, these children and grandchildren of Japanese emigrants to Brazil would fit more easily in a society fiercely closed to outsiders, or so the reasoning went.
In the two decades since then, despite periodic economic downturns like the current one, the number of Japanese-Brazilian workers in Japan has kept growing. They are clustered in industrial regions dotted with factories supplying familiar companies like Honda, Sanyo and Toyota, whose headquarters gave this city in central Japan its name.
But perhaps nowhere in this country do Japanese and Japanese-Brazilians face each other with such intensity as in a public housing complex here called Homi Estate. Built in the 1970s , Homi has a population of 8,891 that is now nearly evenly split between Japanese, at 52 percent, and foreigners, at 48 percent.
“To be honest,” said Toshinori Fujiwara, 69, a Japanese community leader, “I never imagined in my wildest dreams that this would ever become a multiethnic neighborhood.”
A generation from now, more Japanese are likely to be making similar comments as Japan’s population ages and its work force shrinks. Labor shortages have spread from factories to farms, fishing boats, hospitals and other areas, prompting Japan to open its doors to temporary workers from China and elsewhere in Asia.
Japan may have to open itself further to immigration, experts say, if it is to have the workers it needs to remain a major industrial power.
The country’s 317,000 Japanese-Brazilians - whose children are growing up in Japan - effectively make up Japan’s largest immigrant population.
Homi Estate - 40 apartment buildings, detached houses, schools and shops - looks like any other Japanese housing complex from afar. But, on closer inspection, street signs are in Japanese and Portuguese. In the community’s shopping complex, restaurants serve Brazilian dishes; a convenience store displays Brazilian magazines. A Japanese supermarket was replaced by a Japanese-Brazilian one last year, reflecting Homi’s shifting demographics.
“I’ve been lucky because the Japanese have been kind to me,” said Rita Okokama, 40, a Japanese-Brazilian who has been here 18 years and owns Padaria, a small sandwich shop. “But others have faced prejudice. For example, Japanese shop owners will follow around Japanese-Brazilian customers because they think they’ll shoplift.”
At West Homi Elementary, where Japanese- Brazilian children account for 53 percent of the 196 students, supplementary Japanese language classes are offered, as well as help in other subjects. Partly as a result, Japanese-Brazilian children do not drop out, a common problem in other public schools, where foreign children are often bullied.
The new era may be symbolized by a 9-year-old Japanese-Brazilian student named Nicholas Wada . His parents, Joao, 44, and Silvana, 40, came to Japan 18 years ago and also reared a daughter, Veridiana, 22, here.
This year they built a two-story detached house as a sign of their commitment to Japan.
“My son has no image at all of Brazil, so we built this house for him,” Ms. Wada said in the couple’s living room. “Nicholas says he doesn’t want to go to Brazil.”