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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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