Sanctuary City;
a love letter to immigrants dreaming
Sanctuary City, by Martyna Majok, is a love letter to immigrants everywhere who are trapped in impossible situations. Rather than offering a generalized summary of the undocumented experience, Majok invites the audience to peer behind these characters' closed doors. Set in Newark, New Jersey, the play follows two young adolescents, known only as B and G, navigating high school while trying to find sanctuary in a world that does not want to see them thrive. Majok uses their innocence and evolving bond to explore how people care for one another—and how that very care can strain the ties that bind them.
G initiates the play by climbing the fire escape outside B's apartment, seeking refuge from the world beyond his window. When the story begins, sixteen-year-old B is living in the Ironbound neighborhood of Newark. Majok intentionally leaves the race and country of origin for both characters unspecified, creating a universal framework for the millions of people who share their plight. We learn that B arrived in the United States on a visa with his mother and overstayed, leaving him in constant fear of deportation while forced to work under-the-table jobs. While B's home life is far from ideal, it is significantly safer than G's. Like B, G and her mother are undocumented, but they are trapped in an apartment with her mother’s abusive partner, who financially supports them. The abuse goes unreported out of fear of deportation, driving G to seek shelter in her friendship with B.
One of the most compelling aspects of the play's first half—a hallmark of Majok’s writing—is the endearing unsophistication of teenagers attempting to navigate adult realities. The narrative moves through brief, poetic vignettes where B and G dream about their futures and catch subtle glimpses of love. Avoid lecturing on policy, Majok instead focuses on two hormonal, hyper-aware teenagers uncovering what they want out of life. She tackles fundamental questions about immigration: who gets to dream, and who is allowed a future? This is especially poignant given the post-September 11th setting, a period when immigrants—documented or not—were placed under an intense cultural and legal microscope.
Yet, identifying what each character ultimately wants is a question that requires careful unpacking. The repeating engine of the play’s first act is the rhythmic knock at B’s window, followed by an excuse G uses to skip school and hide her physical bruises. Within this repetition, Majok uses rapid-fire cuts back and forth to fill in the characters' backstories. We learn that B's mother plans to return to her country of origin, leaving B with a painful dilemma: return with her and abandon Newark, or stay behind to endure low-wage labor and a life in the shadows. Majok brilliantly captures the naïveté of youth when G naively suggests they rent out his mother's room for extra cash so B can stay and potentially attend college. As adults, we recognize the overwhelming odds stacked against them, but in their eyes, every idea glimmers with possibility.
The dramatic tempo accelerates, with the increasing frequency of G's excuses signaling both the relentless passage of time and their deepening mutual trust. Then, Majok breaks the pattern. G arrives glowing with news: her mother has secretly been naturalizing and leaving her abuser, granting G legal status by extension. Here again, Majok highlights the hopeful logic of youth. Suddenly, G’s newfound security becomes the answer to B's crisis: if they get married, G can confer citizenship onto B, repaying him for the sanctuary he provided when she had nowhere else to go.
The playful innocence of their youth becomes shadowed by this massive commitment. Their conversations shift into rapid-fire drills, rehearsing the personal questions and answers immigration officers will use to test their marriage. Yet, interspersed between these stressful study sessions are moments of warmth—laughing, dancing, celebrating birthdays, and sharing chicken parm. Majok offers a moment of pure relief when prom approaches; despite being far from typical high schoolers, B excitedly convinces G to attend with him. Beneath the comedic relief of this scene lies the core objective of both characters: trapped in a high-stakes, precarious situation, they desperately want to belong—not just in high school, but in the world.
Acquiring legal status does not magically solve G's problems. The psychological trauma of living undocumented does not evaporate with a green card; the fear remains ingrained. Their primary desire was never just legal paperwork—it was the relief from constant fear. B and G became each other's family, relying on one another for survival. Majok captures the beauty found within perpetual instability, a theme she deepens in the play’s second half. Even with legal status and a lawful residence, G's internalized anxieties linger, pointing to the overarching theme of multigenerational trauma that impacts immigrant families.
Every dynamic in Sanctuary City is rooted in the threat of family separation, and Majok underscores this by threatening to separate the only makeshift family we have come to know. B and G find sanctuary in each other, but pervasive fear threatens to keep them from what they want most. They are not merely seeking basic survival; they are craving freedom from the mental and emotional prison that status creates. Majok captures the cycle of hope and despair, ultimately illuminating the profound human need to belong.
