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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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