Out of a
South Korean
Orphanage and Into the World

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

Birth Year

1954

Adoption Year

1958

Adoptive Country

United States

A documentary
film project by
Glenn Morey and
Julie Morey

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  • Birth Year+
    • 1940s
    • 1950s
    • 1960s
    • 1970s
    • 1980s
    • 1990s
  • Gender+
    • Female
    • Male
  • Adoption Year+
    • Less Than 2
    • 2-6
    • More Than 6
  • Adoptive Country+
    • Australia
    • Denmark
    • France
    • Netherlands
    • Sweden
    • Switzerland
    • United States
  • Aged out of Orphanage+
    • Yes
    • No
  • Subject Matter+
    • Being Mixed Race
    • Have Contacted Biological Family
    • Being Mothers and Fathers
  • Clear Filterx
  • 7 countries
  • 6 languages
  • 16 cities
  • 100 stories

An international journey through the personal memories and experiences of abandonment, relinquishment, orphanages, aging out, and inter-country adoption from South Korea

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  • Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  • We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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