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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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