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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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