Challenge: Large Chinese population in California

...With a POD no earlier than the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

California (or, the American West as a whole) must have a Chinese population of at least 10% by 1900, and/or 25% by 2000. And yes, I got the idea from watching Blade Runner.
 
Have the Chinese Exclusion acts not come into place.

While I don't know the exact numbers, Chinese may have actually made-up 10% of Califronias population for a ashort time in the 19th century.
 
You would need a complete shift in Californian attitudes and economy I think. During the late 1800 early 1900 was a Jim Crow state toward Asians so any TL would need this kind of basis. I think the best bet would be smaller white population moves into the state and railroad and mining companies use Chinese immigrants legal and illegal as indentured servitude in a variety of projects. Jim crow of course keeps the Chinese down and a source of cheap labor. one of these companies or all of them combine in the 1870s 1880s railroad collapse and combination period causes these companines to form a monopoly so they have lobbying power to keep the system jn place A worse taiping and other rebellions occurring at this time would need to cause more or less a warlord period in Chine, collapse of effective Qing rule outside of the capital.
 
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