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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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