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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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