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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is Korea still sending children for adoption abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

We have to stop turning ourselves into victims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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