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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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