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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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