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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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