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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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