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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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.

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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