Anti-Chinese sentiment roiled in the years after immigrants built the railroads that opened the West to the rest of the American continent. The Far Country, a moving, meditative play by Lloyd Suh, receiving its world premiere from Atlantic Theater Company, considers this period in history and places it within the greater context of service that foreign-born citizens have contributed to this country.

When the Great San Francisco Earthquake hit in 1906, it destroyed nearly all official documents held in local government offices. This windfall allowed some Chinese nationals, nearly 15 years after the enactment of the Chinese Exclusion Act, to file falsified claims of birthright citizenship, provided they could prove their assertion beyond a reasonable doubt…

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