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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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