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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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