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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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