OOC: Why is it in every one of these things someone says either "I know it sounds ASB" or "No way, too ASB", as if the alternate culture has an overly orthodox approach to alternate history.
OOC: I think there's a perception (perhaps false, perhaps not) that some participants wield that "ASB" hammer over certain TL ideas a bit too vigorously, out of some irrational or stodgy stubbornness regarding whatever that idea is. I for one don't find labeling something ASB as inherently insulting, but I also don't believe that, because a TL is hard or unlikely to achieve, is automatically ASB. My definition of such is "literally, physically, scientifically impossible to achieve in any realistic way", like with ISOTs or time-traveling strangers.
IC: @Hollis, are you sure that there were that many "Hispanos" in California? My understanding was that it the population of it during Spanish and Mexican rule was
extremely sparse, hence the ease of settlement by Americans during the 19th. century.