Champions for Diversity & Inclusion Awards 2025: Michelle Li champions diversity in St. Louis through journalism and nonprofit work

Reported by Niara Savage St. Louis Business Journal

Story Highlights

• Michelle Li co-founded Very Asian Foundation to spotlight Asian experiences.

• Li used journalism to raise awareness of St. Louis' Chinatown.

• Li advocates for DEI that impacts and includes everyone.

For 5 On Your Side news anchor Michelle Li, a commitment to inclusion and equity looks like telling stories about marginalized communities, raising awareness about diverse cultural influences in St. Louis’ history and recognizing that true diversity transcends race and ethnicity.

In 2022, after she was asked by a viewer to keep her "very Asian" to herself, Li co-founded the Very Asian Foundation to spotlight Asian experiences and elevate the stories of Asians nationally and internationally. Through that work, she's helped create scholarships for creatives, give awards to community members, raise money for community initiatives, and launch new events, like the Lunar New Year Art Show.

What personal accomplishment in the past year has helped advance DEI at your company or in the community? I am just doing what I have always done as a journalist — report on the truth, cover stories that don't always get brought to the surface, and work towards advancing stories that matter to our communities. I have never sought out a DEI initiative, but I suppose when you're telling stories about marginalized communities or injustices, they have similar outcomes. This year, I used journalism as a tool to raise awareness of the near century-old Chinatown in downtown St. Louis and the work of the Chinese Collecting Initiative by Peter Tao and the Missouri Historical Society. I made one phone call to then-alderwoman Cara Spencer about Chinatown itself and asked her if she'd consider listening to the community's need to have it acknowledged. She obliged, and the St. Louis board of aldermen unanimously agreed to honorarily rename 8th street to On Leong Way. This was made possible by the work of many people, including board members of several community groups and convened by Danny Poon from The Very Asian Foundation, a national nonprofit that I helped launch in 2022. At the end of the day, we just do what we do as St. Louisans, but it's important to honor the truth and our shared history because it can change our collective futures.

What are the biggest challenges you face while advocating for DEI? DEI has turned into something political, and it makes people feel like they have to take a side. It becomes challenging as a woman, a mom, a person of color, a journalist and a nonprofit co-founder. From a nonprofit side, funding has changed drastically. VAF lost grant opportunities because of NEA cuts, and corporations are afraid to engage in charitable giving. That greatly impacts how VAF does its work: can we have the Lunar New Year art show in 2026? I don't know. We are a grassroots organization, and every dollar counts for us. Personally, as a woman, you have to work twice as hard to begin with. You often have to parent like you don't have a job and work like you don't have a kid. Times are tough, and they always have been for women, but these current times feel more challenging.

What do you hope to conquer next in regard to DEI work? I am always trying to raise awareness that DEI as we know it impacts everyone. Everyone. Everyone should have an employee resource group that speaks to them. Everyone should feel a place of belonging. Everyone needs to understand they have a difference that makes them special.

On a personal level, I've spent the last few years reaching students. Frederick Douglass was quoted, "It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men." I see this in adults in the Asian American spaces I am in. They spend so much of their adulthood trying to fix their childhood trauma while raising children who have their own issues. I have my own issues to reckon with, and at the same time, I am trying to raise a son who is living in a different time, with different circumstances, and has a genetic makeup not like my own. If we can build confident young people, they can become more stable adults who can make a positive change in the world. I am leaning hard into these futures.

DEI, as a term, has become politicized. Has that changed how you do your work or make it more difficult?