AHC/WI: More Japanese-Americans

This challenge is to increase the Japanese American population to the largest Japanese diaspora in the world and then some (say 2 million, or in that general ball park). Part of this may be in pre-1900, but this is a good enough area for it. You can obviously also talk about the impacts of this.
 

The Sandman

Banned
Pacific War lasts longer, ruins of Japan are annexed to US because there isn't enough of a coherent Japanese civilization left for the traumatized survivors to rebuild.
 

MrP

Banned
Anti-Asian prejudice would seem to preclude such a large influx of Japanese immigrants to the US itself. But how about one of its territories before it accedes to full-fledged statehood? Hawaii had quite a large Japanese community when it became a state; perhaps the growth of labour-intensive industries in Alaska causes a manpower shortage which results in the hiring of Japanese contract labourers? And then they and their descendants become US citizens in 1959.
 
Anti-Asian prejudice would seem to preclude such a large influx of Japanese immigrants to the US itself. But how about one of its territories before it accedes to full-fledged statehood? Hawaii had quite a large Japanese community when it became a state; perhaps the growth of labour-intensive industries in Alaska causes a manpower shortage which results in the hiring of Japanese contract labourers? And then they and their descendants become US citizens in 1959.

The point on Alaska is actually really interesting. I could absolutely see there being a larger Japanese minority there, and it's kind of surprising there wasn't more immigration there OTL.
 
One obvious way to increase the number of Asian Americans in the US in general would be for the various exclusion acts not to be passed in the US in the late 19th century; that way you'd get more people of East Asian descent able to come to the US West Coast and Alaska without restriction and in the numbers similar to immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe on the East Coast.
 
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