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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.”

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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