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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.