Out of a
South Korean
Orphanage and Into the World

My teacher told the class, “This is her last day. She’s going to America.”

Birth Year

1970

Adoption Year

1982

Adoptive Country

United States

A documentary
film project by
Glenn Morey and
Julie Morey

Explore stories by ▾

  • Birth Year+
    • 1940s
    • 1950s
    • 1960s
    • 1970s
    • 1980s
    • 1990s
  • Gender+
    • Female
    • Male
  • Adoption Year+
    • Less Than 2
    • 2-6
    • More Than 6
  • Adoptive Country+
    • Australia
    • Denmark
    • France
    • Netherlands
    • Sweden
    • Switzerland
    • United States
  • Aged out of Orphanage+
    • Yes
    • No
  • Subject Matter+
    • Being Mixed Race
    • Have Contacted Biological Family
    • Being Mothers and Fathers
  • Clear Filterx
  • 7 countries
  • 6 languages
  • 16 cities
  • 100 stories

An international journey through the personal memories and experiences of abandonment, relinquishment, orphanages, aging out, and inter-country adoption from South Korea

 
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  • I’ve been homeless 15 times, from 1987 to the present—5 years in NYC.

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  • What if I find out something I don't want to know? That scares me.

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  • Because I’ve chosen to become a single mother, I think about my birth mother a lot.

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  • It was like opening Pandora’s Box, this piece of paper in my hands.

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  • I remember looking in the mirror, trying to see what made me a target.

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  • I am a man who should have died a long time ago, but I have a family now.

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  • An immigrant family that was unwilling to give up on an abandoned orphan.

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  • I was born to have an identity complex, being adopted and transgendered.

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  • I sold hard taffy, physical labor. Those jobs were my ticket to survival.

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  • She gave me a ring she was wearing and said, “We have the same hands.”

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  • My mom’s comment to me was, “You should be dating your own kind.”

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  • Five Korean adoptees getting together, then 12, 15, 20, hundreds.

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  • As of today, I do not know who is telling the truth, and who is not.

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  • The woman on the phone says, “We think we found your mother.”

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  • I meet facility alumni. Some are successful, some have gone astray.

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  • What I had been looking for in my birth mom, I found when my son was born.

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  • I miss Korea and my birth family. It’s a sadness that I carry with me.

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  • I did 23andMe. My second cousin on my birth father's side contacted me.

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  • My mother simply asked me, “Would you like to go to America?”

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  • I see a lot of Chinese babies who are adopted. We kind of blazed a trail.

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  • My mother thinks that I’m happy all the time, not how I have struggled.

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  • I was the baby—the first choice to give up for adoption. I understand that.

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  • I don't talk much about growing up in an orphanage—my darkest moment.

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  • I want to be as good a parent as my mom was for me. I’ll try my hardest.

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  • After that, I kind of realized…okay, I’m a child born of rape.

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  • A feeling of detachment, and an inability to connect with anybody.

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  • I enjoy traveling. When you travel, you’re not supposed to belong.

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  • I don’t remember much, except the crying—all those unhappy children.

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  • I’ll embrace the sorrow I still feel, and one day I will heal and forgive.

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  • Would I have been better off in Korea? I think the answer is always, no.

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  • Korea never left me. Korea is inside of me. I eat, breathe, and live Korea.

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  • I never really discussed racism with my parents. I didn't want to relive it.

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  • If I wasn’t adopted, I’d be working a rice field. I’m not really an outdoor guy.

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  • My oldest son got me a DNA test, and it stated I’m 100% Japanese.

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  • We always felt we were Danish children, with Danish values and norms.

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  • I remember walking down a dirt road in Korea, and crying.

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  • My facility experience has made me tough. I don’t cry over small things.

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  • My adopting father told me he met my mother, and he negotiated with her.

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  • I did a total 180 from not hanging out with Asians, making up for lost time.

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  • There’s a different layer on life when someone chooses you.

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  • My adoptive parents are Korean. I found out I was adopted 3 years ago.

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  • I feel my friends hold the concept of finding birth parents closer than I do.

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  • When I walk into a room, do people look at me and say, there’s the Asian girl?

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  • People say my happy appearance is impressive, given my childhood.

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  • I learned that I was incredibly lucky to have grown up in Denmark.

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  • What I’ve learned through my faith in the Lord, is that it happened for a reason.

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  • My mom told me herself that I was born on the floor at home.

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  • I got married after my husband promised me he’d never mention my past.

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  • My husband and I are both Korean. Our son inherits our Korean heritage.

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  • I was 7 and a half when I was adopted. I was told that I had two sisters.

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  • When I married, I hid my history. Afterwards, the truth became known.

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  • Learning Korean really made me the most in touch with being Korean.

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  • My earliest memories are of living in one room with my birth mother.

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  • My teacher told the class, “This is her last day. She’s going to America.”

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  • When I met my birth mom, it wasn't under the best circumstances.

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  • Maybe even more as an adoptee, I’m afraid of losing my parents.

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  • I have chosen to see adoption as a part of my life, not the driver.

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  • I ask myself a lot of questions about my ability to be a mother.

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  • It wasn't until college that I started to sort out my multiple identities.

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  • In Korea, I can feel the way people look at me, and I lose confidence.

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  • My biological father is standing there, leaning over a motorcycle.

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  • If I were to be given another life, I would want to receive parental love.

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  • My college essay was called “My Lucky Number”— my case number, K90821.

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  • My birth mother has remarried, and her husband can’t know that I exist.

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  • There’s no information about me, my birth, my family in Korea. Nothing.

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  • It’s not a job, but getting married that’s a challenge.

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  • My adoptive parents are Korean. I grew up speaking Korean.

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  • I’m grateful, truly, to be alive today. That’s why I tell my story.

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  • It’s important for me to share, to encourage others who’ve been victims.

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  • God, why am I here? Why did you put me in this household?

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  • My adoptive parents loved me so much, before they even had me.

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  • As a child, I often dreamt about what I saw the night I was abandoned.

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  • It was an unspeakable act. I wanted to forget it. But I couldn’t.

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  • It took my birth father 35 years of searching. He finally found me 3 years ago.

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  • In the Holt records, it says that I was left on the doorstep of a man’s house.

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  • I didn’t have problems during childhood. I am who I am, Dutch Korean.

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  • I don’t know how to put it into words. I wish I could live like everyone else.

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  • It made me embarrassed, that I had to explain my existence to other people.

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  • Adoption includes the first family. The child did not appear from nowhere.

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  • I’m most likely a foundling, left near a police station.

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  • I was in the orphanage for the undesirable children. I was not adoptable.

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  • He puts his little hand on my face. “Momma, we have the same eyes.”

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  • It’s good to feel like you can acknowledge the complexities around adoption.

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  • The email said, “We found your mother. You have to come to Korea now.”

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  • All of a sudden, I saw real Koreans, who weren’t speaking Danish.

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  • Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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  • I didn’t get the answers I wished for, but I am more at peace with that.

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  • My biological parents wanted us to be together with a Christian family.

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  • Mild curiosity grew into a need to connect with adoptees and Korean-Americans.

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  • We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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  • I have both my birth family and my adoptive family, and I love them both.

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  • Mixed-race kids were seen as human refuse, a scourge on their culture.

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  • Yeah, I’m black and Korean. But first and foremost, I’m black.

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  • I remember, vividly, the morning my mother gave us up. She was crying.

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  • Our extended relatives made it clear. My sister and I were “add-ons.”

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  • I learned how to pronounce my Korean name, and realized that it’s beautiful.

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  • That pain never goes away. I take my pain, and I put anger over it.

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  • I think that’s why God gave me my daughter, so I wouldn't be alone.

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  • I grew up feeling like a Martian who had arrived from outer space.

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  • For the first time, I saw other adoptees who looked a bit like me.

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