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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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