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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.”

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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