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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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