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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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