Since the founding of America, federal forces have sought to define and redefine who is worthy of being classified as an “American.” Lloyd Suh’s play The Heart Sellers centers on two Asian women who migrated to the U.S. nearly a decade after the 1965 Hart-Celler Immigration Act, a law that radically shifted who was allowed to pursue US citizenship and under what circumstances.
Here's a recap of some of the immigration policies that shaped Luna and Jane’s America:
As the U.S. developed a sense of its national identity, the question of who qualified as an “American” became urgent. Early policies intentionally excluded enslaved people from accessing the American Dream, constructing the concept of American citizenship around being white, free, and male.
1790 – Naturalization Act: Citizenship for some
America’s first federal law defining citizenship limits naturalization to “free white persons” of “good moral character” who had resided in the U.S. for at least two years. Future naturalization laws would extend the residency requirement to five years (1795), 14 (1798), and then five years again (1802). Whiteness was determined through paternal lineage, and legal naturalization was the responsibility of the courts.
In the late 1840s, the California Gold Rush attracted thousands of Chinese laborers to the United States. Many helped build the Transcontinental Railroad under brutal conditions, for unlivable wages. As their presence grew, labor unions and politicians began to scapegoat Chinese workers for nation-wide low wages and job scarcity, stoking a wave of anti-Asian racism and xenophobia that Congress would reflect in legislation.
1868 – Burlingame Treaty: Access to workers
After labor shortages delay the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, the United States and China reach this agreement, which guarantees free migration, specifically to bring Chinese laborers to the U.S.
1868 – 14th Amendment: Equal Rights and Due Process
Congress amends the Constitution to grant birthright citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the U.S., regardless of race, which extends citizenship to Black Americans; it does not include Indigenous Americans, who will gain citizenship rights in 1924. Establishes due process and equal protection under the law at the state and federal levels to citizens and non-citizens alike.
1870 – Naturalization Act: Naturalization for African Immigrants
The 1870 Naturalization Act created a new system to manage legal naturalization. It extended citizenship to “aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent,” opening a pathway for African Immigrants and formerly enslaved African Americans to become Americans. The Act was also used to further alienate non-black people of color, reinforcing the exclusion of Asian immigrants.
1875 – Page Act: Limits and stereotypes for Asian Women
The Page Act bans the immigration of Asian women suspected of being “imported” for sex work or “immoral purposes.” The implications that Asian women are migrating to the US solely to engage in sex work contribute to the hyper sexualization and stigmatization of Asian women in the 19th Century and beyond.
1882 – Chinese Exclusion Act: Targeting Chinese laborers
The first federal law to ban immigration based on nationality, the Chinese Exclusion Act imposes a 10-year ban on Chinese laborers entering the U.S., blocks Chinese immigrants already living in the U.S. from becoming citizens, and forms the legal basis for deporting many Chinese nationals living in the U.S.
1892 – Geary Act: Extending the Exclusion Act
As the Chinese Exclusion Act is set to expire, Congress passes the Geary Act, which extends the Exclusion Act for another ten years and requires Chinese residents to carry residency certificates or be liable for detention and deportation. Legal scholars consider this a precursor to the U.S.’s current green card system, which certifies the holder as a permanent resident, authorized to live and work in the United States.
While anti-Asian immigration policy continued into the 20th century, World War II shifted Congressional attention from Chinese workers to Japanese Americans living in the U.S. After the Pearl Harbor attacks, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order authorizing the relocation and incarceration of Japanese Americans in internment camps for the duration of the War. The U.S. modified some of their Sinophobic policies as it sought to ally with China against Japan. After the war, many returned to the States with partners from the Eastern Hemisphere. Congress shifted migration policy to maintain nuclear families, and social attitudes slowly inched towards assimilation over separatism.
1917 – Barred Zone Act: Limiting through language
Passed during World War I, the Barred Zone Act limited access to naturalization by creating geographic and literary barriers targeted towards Eastern Europeans and Asians. It calls for the exclusions of “All aliens over sixteen years of age, physically capable of reading, who can not read the English language, or some other language or dialect, including Hebrew or Yiddish,” and implemented a literacy test intended to exclude Eastern European Migrants from becoming citizens. Similar to the “Muslim bans” of the 21st century, the law also blocked immigration from the majority of Asia and the Middle East, except for Japanese citizens (per a 1907 “gentlemen’s agreement” between the U.S. and Japanese governments) and the Philippines, which was a colony of the U.S.
1924 – Johnson-Reed Act: Immigration quotas
Creates a quota system meant as a “bulwark”—or defensive wall— against “alien blood” per the Act’s architect, Senator David Reed. The Act adds Japan to the Asian countries excluded from immigration to the U.S. and limits migration from Southern and Eastern Europe. The law caps total immigration at 165,000 people per year—roughly 20% of the pre-WWI average.
The quota system allows for 87% of spots for immigrants from northwest Europe, 11% from Eastern and Southern Europe, and 2.3% from the rest of the world combined (including Australia and New Zealand).
The law remains intact through the ’30s and ’40s, despite the rise of Nazi Germany and the increasing applications for asylum from Jewish migrants. Four years after the law passes, Adolf Hitler praises American legislators for enacting policy against “strangers of the blood.”
1934 – Tydings-McDuffie Act: Excluding the Philippines
As U.S. nationals from a colony, Filipinos had previously been allowed free travel to mainland America. This act allows a ten-year transition to Filipino independence and—following fervent anti-Filipino campaigns on the West Coast—limits migration to just 50 people per year during its commonwealth status.
1943 – Repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act: Alliance with China
China’s wartime alliance with the U.S. proved to be critical in the fight against the Axis powers. In an effort to maintain Chinese allyship against Japan, the U.S. repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act, instead limiting Chinese immigration to 105 people per year.
1945 – War Brides Act: Maintaining the nuclear family
Post-WWII, many soldiers found love abroad. The War Brides Act exempted spouses of U.S. servicemen from immigration quotas, allowing them to immigrate to the U.S. This ushered in a surge of Asian women migrating to the U.S. from China, Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines. It took a 1947 amendment to include Japanese children and spouses in this act.
1946 – Luce-Celler Act: More access for Asian immigrants
Furthering the efforts to dismantle anti-Asian immigration policy, the Luce-Celler Act extends naturalization rights to Filipinos, Indians, Indigenous Americans from North and South America, and sectors of Asia that had been key allies during the war effort.
1952 – McCarran-Walter Act: A pivot
Ends race-based exclusion from naturalization (so resident Asian children of immigrants are now eligible for U.S. citizenship) but maintains the national origin quota system of 1924. Maps the beginnings of a preference system based on labor needs and family reunification and allows citizens of former U.S. colonies, like the Philippines, to naturalize.
1965 – Hart-Celler Act: A new direction
Landmark legislation abolishes the national origins quotas of the Johnson-Reed Act. This act tightens up the preference system, prioritizing family reunification, then skilled labor, and lastly refugees. It also caps immigration from each country at 20,000 people annually. While this law opens doors for more immigrants from wider swaths of the globe, its focus on “skilled labor” limits that opportunity to established white-collar workers, leaving agricultural laborers, domestic service workers, and construction workers behind.
The influx of white-collar Asian immigrants led to the development of the “Model Minority” myth that Asians are smarter and more professional than other racial minorities. Despite its classism, the Hart-Cellar Act marked a major opening for legal migration from Asia and the Eastern Hemisphere, sparking an influx of migrants like Luna and Jane, who sought a new life in postwar America.