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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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