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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.