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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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