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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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