Out of a
South Korean
Orphanage and Into the World

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

Birth Year

1954

Adoption Year

1958

Adoptive Country

United States

A documentary
film project by
Glenn Morey and
Julie Morey

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  • Birth Year+
    • 1940s
    • 1950s
    • 1960s
    • 1970s
    • 1980s
    • 1990s
  • Gender+
    • Female
    • Male
  • Adoption Year+
    • Less Than 2
    • 2-6
    • More Than 6
  • Adoptive Country+
    • Australia
    • Denmark
    • France
    • Netherlands
    • Sweden
    • Switzerland
    • United States
  • Aged out of Orphanage+
    • Yes
    • No
  • Subject Matter+
    • Being Mixed Race
    • Have Contacted Biological Family
    • Being Mothers and Fathers
  • Clear Filterx
  • 7 countries
  • 6 languages
  • 16 cities
  • 100 stories

An international journey through the personal memories and experiences of abandonment, relinquishment, orphanages, aging out, and inter-country adoption from South Korea

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  • Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  • We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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