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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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