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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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