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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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