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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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