The day The Heart Sellers premiered at the Seattle Repertory Theater, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis. One day later, when I saw the show, a federal agent shot two people in Portland after, court documents claim, six border agents attempted to pull them over. 

For the last year, President Donald Trump has waged war against immigrants. He is destroying real people and families. He has ripped through the fabric of our country, criminalizing those who come here for a better life—the very principles America was founded on. Even before he won re-election, Trump and the Republican Party stoked the fears of its already paranoid base by magnifying the crimes of a few immigrants and inventing disgusting narratives about others. Throughout the play, I could not quiet the outside world in the Leo K. Theater. 

The Heart Sellers by Lloyd Suh is a story about immigrants. Directed by Sunam Ellis, the play is beautiful, and it is sad. It centers on Luna (an electric Becca Q. Co) and Jane (played quietly, and then dynamically, by Seoyoung Park), who meet each other in a grocery store on Thanksgiving in 1973. Neither one of them is from the US. Luna is from the Philippines. Jane is from Korea. They came to the US with their medical resident husbands to escape dictators (Ferdinand Marcos for Luna, Park Chung Hee for Jane). Their husbands are working at the hospital all night. They are alone, but not only on this holiday. They are always alone. Luna and Jane recognize each other as outsiders. 

Luna invites Jane up to her apartment. Jane accepts. Luna wants to do Thanksgiving. She bought a turkey but doesn’t know how to cook it. Jane, who’s been watching Julia Child, knows what to do. Except, the turkey is frozen. Cooking it will take hours. They have nothing but time. 

There is a hunger for friendship and connection pervasive throughout Heart Sellers. It’s awkward at first as outgoing, bold Luna tries to coax something—anything—out of quiet and reticent Jane. Soon—after a taste of Cheez Whiz and a bottle of wine their husbands wouldn’t approve of—Jane loosens up. Personality pours out of each of them as the play evolves. They both have communist sisters! Jane likes to paint! They both watch Soul Train! It verges on manic at times. All of this has been bottled up. They have not been able to be themselvessince moving to America. Because they sold their hearts upon entering the country.

The Hart-Celler Act, otherwise known as the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, passed during the height of the Civil Rights movement is the only reason Luna and Jane could be in America. The policy abolished the National Origins Formula, the bedrock of American immigration policy since the 1920s, which reduced immigration from outside northwest Europe. Adolf Hitler gave the National Origins Formula a coveted (to, ahem, some) Mein Kampf shout-out, commending it for excluding immigrants of certain races. 

Now, they are here. Every day, they’re left to wonder: Was it worth it?

Luna—prone to wild daydreams and an active imagination—tells Jane about how she always pictured the Hart-Celler Act literally, as though it was someone selling hearts on the side of the road. And that, when she came to America, waiting in the immigration line, she pictured the border patrol agents asking people to exchange their hearts in order to enter the country. 

As of 1965, America truly embraced the whole melting pot thing and started welcoming people like Luna and Jane into the fold. Except, it is not so welcoming to be a stranger in a strange land. 

While showing Jane her photo albums, Luna points out a picture of herself and her husband at Disneyland. 

“You went to Disneyland?” Jane exclaims. 

Yes, Luna says. Then she clarifies: Well, only outside Disneyland. They couldn’t afford the tickets to actually go in. But they could see the castle! And the tram! It was fantastic. 

Luna and Jane and their young families are as close to the American dream as Luna was to Disneyland, but they are as far from it as Luna was from getting a picture with Mickey Mouse. It is something they can appreciate, like the country town Luna and her husband drove through, where she saw a crowd of people celebrating, a picturesque barn, and seasonal flowers. She knew she couldn’t stop and join in the fun, because she was too different. They will always feel as though they’re on the outside looking in while in America. She still fantasizes about that barn.

Together, though, it’s better. She and Jane make plans for tomorrow, for the next day. They are friends now. But their friendship isn’t a guarantee, because anything could happen. And, who are they really? This experience—this place—has changed them. They have left their hearts at the threshold of this country. Still, they envision a future. It is what is best for them and their families. 

Heart Sellers, a one-act play with only two actors, is small and it is intimate. Because of Co’s nimble acting from comedic to sentimental and Park’s tender trepidation mixed with genius physical comedy, I left the theater caring for these characters. Which makes it all the more tragic to know that things seem to be trending far worse today for immigrants in this country than they were in 1973. With ICE raids, travel bans, and canceled citizenship appointments, we have put restrictions on who can dream of more. Luna and Jane were so full in that theater—they brought me to laughter and to tears—but the American dream has never felt so hollow. 

The Heart Sellers plays at the Seattle Repertory Theater through Feb 1.