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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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