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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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