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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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