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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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