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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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