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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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