We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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