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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My adoptive parents are Korean. I found out I was adopted 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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