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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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