Liz Rogers lives in Portland, where she is a caseworker for Asian and Pacific Islander families at the Asian Family Center. Born in Korea, Rogers, 25, was adopted at 15 months by a Massachusetts couple from a Korean foster family.

Rogers' parents, who had three biological children and a son they also adopted from Korea, encouraged her to explore her roots; in college, she majored in sociology and East Asian languages. Here, she reflects on her upbringing:

"Growing up, I didn't have much opportunity to make connections with other adoptees, let alone other Koreans. But my parents knew they didn't have the answers for everything, so they encouraged me to go to whatever lengths I needed to find them.

"It wasn't until I went away to college that I realized I was a person of color and had friends of color. Adoption had always been an open issue in my family. But race and adoption only began to crisscross for me after I left for college. I went to China my junior year and, for the first time, I was surrounded by people who looked like me.

"After college, I spent 10 months in Korea. It was my first exposure to 'real' Korean people. It was unexpectedly tough for me to hear them introduce me as 'American.'

"The adoption of so many Korean children is an uncomfortable subject for Korean people. They don't know whether to feel shame or pity or turn their backs.

"When I was there, it was actually kind of a reality check. I visited the orphanage my adopted brother had been in. To see all these cute little kids who, for some reason, were homeless made me feel sad and hopeful at the same time. Maybe they would grow up being homeless, or maybe they would have a similar experience to mine and grow up in a happy and supportive family.

"At the end of the day, my view is that transracial adoption should be a last resort. No matter how much your parents love you and want to help you, there is no way they could ever possibly understand what people of color in this country have to endure -- unless we're talking about the rare occasion when a child of color gets adopted into a family where the parents are not white.

"There is a fine line between embracing your child's culture and exploiting it. I cringe when adoptive Caucasian parents say, 'We're Chinese,' because whatever they do, they're not Chinese. Their child is Chinese, but they are not and never will be. It is disrespectful to take ownership of a culture like that. The last thing the children need, after everything that has been taken from them, is to take the culture that is theirs, too.

"We appreciate our parents for all they've done, just as most children should be appreciative of their parents, adopted or not. But people should remember that it was not our choice to be adopted or to leave Korea.

"Of course it matters that a child is adopted, but the salient fact is that he or she is a child of color in a family that often isn't. Parents love their children, and they think of adoption as a kind of shield against a world that has prejudice. But it isn't. When I was in China, I found it kind of gratifying to not be the one who was being stared at. No one was pointing or looking at me, or calling things out to me. I saw that happen to white people there, and I knew exactly how it felt.

"In Korea I was very aware that I wasn't 'fully' Korean. It's a patriarchal society, and I found that challenging. Without my experiences, I may not be as assertive as I am today, and I recognize that.

"As much success as adoptees have in school or sports, people shouldn't overlook the internal struggles we will continue to have.

"Then there is always the question of finding your 'real' parents. I grew up with my 'real' parents, but someday I would like to search for my biological relatives.

"Right now it's all a big question mark and, as an adoptee, I have to consider all the possibilities of what led to my adoption, which is a process in and of itself."