In the award-winning play The Heart Sellers, playwright Lloyd Suh uses a landmark of U.S. legislation, The Hart-Celler Act (also known as The 1965 Immigration Act), to set the scene for this heartfelt story of two young immigrant women, newly arrived from Korea (Jane) and the Philippines (Luna).

So, what was this historic Act? The United States’ relationship with immigrants has always been tumultuous. In the years when railroads were first being built to connect people and goods across the vast country, Chinese immigrants stepped in to fill the void with hard, often dangerous work, and labored for much less pay than white laborers.

^{A group of Northern Pacific Railroad construction workers in front of a locomotive (1885). Museum of History & Industry, Seattle; All Rights Reserved. Courtesy of the MOHAI archives.}

After the transcontinental railroad was complete in 1869, tens of thousands of Chinese immigrants remained in the U.S., and anti-Chinese sentiments grew amongst the white population. A law called the Chinese Exclusion Act passed in 1882, which barred any immigration from China for ten years.

During this decade of Chinese Exclusion, Japanese and Korean immigration to the U.S. rose, along with anti-Asian rhetoric. Groups like The Asiatic Exclusion League stirred up sentiments like “The Yellow Peril,” and stoked fear about morality and economic security. World Wars I and II reinforced American racism toward Asians, which resulted in even more restrictive legislation, especially toward East Asian immigrants.

^{Article about the 1924 Immigration Act. The Morning Call. Allentown, Pennsylvania. Tue., Feb. 6, 1923. Page 1.}

Beginning in 1921, U.S. immigration policy was based on a national quota system that restricted the entire immigrant population of the U.S.—meaning each country had a maximum allowance of people who could immigrate to the U.S. in a given period. In 1924, these immigrant quotas were updated by the Johnson-Reed Act, and the Asian Exclusion Act.

With these quota changes, immigration to the U.S. was essentially limited to Western Europe, North America, and South America. People from East and South Asia (the Philippines, as residents of the U.S. colony, were allowed to immigrate to the U.S., but the cultural climate perpetuated difficulties for those who did), Africa, and Eastern and Southern Europe had the most restrictions around U.S. immigration—until the Hart-Celler Act in 1965.

^{Remarks at the Signing of the Immigration Bill (Hart-Celler Act), Liberty Island, New York, October 3, 1965. Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson.}

Suddenly, quotas were gone, and immigration to the U.S. from these previously-heavily-restricted areas was much easier. But what about culture? A piece of legislation does not always change hearts and minds, and the previous attempts to limit non-white populations from coming to the U.S. had solid support from xenophobic groups.

Suh’s The Heart Sellers is set in 1973, just eight years after the passing of the Hart-Celler Act and explores bonding through cultural differences and finding new traditions and family in an unfamiliar place. The character of Luna remarks on the Act at one point, saying that, “…after Hart- Celler all of a sudden we can come here. Our husbands anyway, they can come here to study. Work and study.”

^{The Tamura family posing at a U.S. naturalization ceremony. Seattle, November 1, 1965. Photographed by Tom Brownell for The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Courtesy of the MOHAI archives.}

The richness of Suh’s characters—over the backdrop of exclusionary legislation and the loneliness of the immigrant experience—helps us to imagine coming to a new country, knowing only your spouse, and leaving behind the rest of your family, your language, and your culture. While the Hart-Celler Act changed U.S. immigration law, The Heart Sellers reminds us that the real work of bridging cultural divides happens in moments like the ones we experience with Jane and Luna as they get to know one another, sing together, make up stories, and find new family in a new world.

See The Heart Sellers on stage at Seattle Rep, playing Jan. 2–Feb. 1, 2026.

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