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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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