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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.