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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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