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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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