Plausibility Check/AHC: Japanese immigrants on Northern Mexico

Today's question is:

How could it be possible for Japanese exiles to find themselves on the Mexican Territory of Alta California and Nuevo Mexico in-between 1821 and 1846?

I'm personally thinking this might either be Japanese Christians running away from persecution into a fellow Catholic nation, or refugees from an earlier Meiji restoration. Maybe both.

How would having an important Japanese minority on the Mexican North/Southwest USA so early ITTL affect theese territories' fate (cultural direction, political fate, economic structure, relationships with the Native Americans, etc) of the Northern trerritories? Any opinions regarding these circumstances?

PS: I'll admit, I partly wanted to see this due to wondering how they may interact with the New Mexico tribe of the Zuni, that speak a dialect eerily similar to Japanese.
 
Today's question is:

How could it be possible for Japanese exiles to find themselves on the Mexican Territory of Alta California and Nuevo Mexico in-between 1821 and 1846?

I'm personally thinking this might either be Japanese Christians running away from persecution into a fellow Catholic nation, or refugees from an earlier Meiji restoration. Maybe both.

How would having an important Japanese minority on the Mexican North/Southwest USA so early ITTL affect theese territories' fate (cultural direction, political fate, economic structure, relationships with the Native Americans, etc) of the Northern trerritories? Any opinions regarding these circumstances?

PS: I'll admit, I partly wanted to see this due to wondering how they may interact with the New Mexico tribe of the Zuni, that speak a dialect eerily similar to Japanese.

Well, first you need to get Japanese OUT of Japan before the country opens up. Smuggling a few out to China might be possible, but you wouldn't get many. THEN you have to get them to North America (why would they go there?), and California in particular.

Seems, at best, wildly improbable. At least without a major change to Japan a decade or two earlier.
 
Maybe have a Japanese state be forced to give Spain a "treaty port" a la China, and have the locals convert. Then another clan comes in, overpowers the smaller clan, and before they know it, their port is crammed with Japanese catholics trying to get anywhere but Japan. Then its a simple Japan-Menilla-Tihuana shot, and then have a vaccum for jobs in Northern Mexico, and there ya have it.
 
Maybe have a Japanese state be forced to give Spain a "treaty port" a la China, and have the locals convert. Then another clan comes in, overpowers the smaller clan, and before they know it, their port is crammed with Japanese catholics trying to get anywhere but Japan. Then its a simple Japan-Menilla-Tihuana shot, and then have a vaccum for jobs in Northern Mexico, and there ya have it.

You might have gotten your times confused. Treaty ports in Japan...you're not getting them until the 1800's.

Unfortunately, by that time, Catholicism is almost completely gone from Japan.
 
Well, first you need to get Japanese OUT of Japan before the country opens up. Smuggling a few out to China might be possible, but you wouldn't get many. THEN you have to get them to North America (why would they go there?), and California in particular.

Seems, at best, wildly improbable. At least without a major change to Japan a decade or two earlier.
You are correct, I am also trying to crack my head about it.

Maybe have a Japanese state be forced to give Spain a "treaty port" a la China, and have the locals convert. Then another clan comes in, overpowers the smaller clan, and before they know it, their port is crammed with Japanese catholics trying to get anywhere but Japan. Then its a simple Japan-Menilla-Tihuana shot, and then have a vaccum for jobs in Northern Mexico, and there ya have it.

You might have gotten your times confused. Treaty ports in Japan...you're not getting them until the 1800's.

Unfortunately, by that time, Catholicism is almost completely gone from Japan.

Well... Would a POD in the mid XVIII century work to get a fair few numbers of Japanese out of Japan and into Spanish America (and specifically California and Nuevo Mexico)?
 
You are correct, I am also trying to crack my head about it.





Well... Would a POD in the mid XVIII century work to get a fair few numbers of Japanese out of Japan and into Spanish America (and specifically California and Nuevo Mexico)?

No, because those are independent from Spain by that time.

This AHC seems hard.
 
Move those Japanese Christians who settled in the Philippines to Mexico. Lots of Japanese men who married native women here.
 
No, because those are independent from Spain by that time.

This AHC seems hard.
I know dude. This one's indeed a tough one.
Move those Japanese Christians who settled in the Philippines to Mexico. Lots of Japanese men who married native women here.
Hmm... That might wirk. Asides from their faith, do they conserve other elements of their mother culture, such as the language, etc?
 
Hmm... That might wirk. Asides from their faith, do they conserve other elements of their mother culture, such as the language, etc?

Well, they certainly retain the family names. And the first generation may still speak fluent Japanese.
 
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