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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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