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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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