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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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