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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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