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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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