Catching Up With Michelle Li

Michelle Li famously created the Very Asian Foundation after a viewer in St. Louis sent her a racist email telling her to “keep her Korean to herself” and of being “very Asian” after she mentioned on-air that she enjoyed eating traditional Korean dumpling soup as part of a New Year’s tradition.

Here, she discusses her love of Seattle, her surprise that her experience went viral, and how the experience increasingly shapes her life.

Transcript:

[MUSIC PLAYING] Hi, I’m Jonathan Sposato, owner and publisher of Seattle Magazine.

Today, we have a very, very special guest, one of my favorite people in all the world.

And those of you who used to watch King 5, who do still watch King 5, will remember Michelle Lee as a familiar face.

Michelle Lee was an anchor media personality in the greater Seattle region.

She was a thought leader and influencer.

And more recently, was the founder of the very Asian movement, fundamentally needle-moving work in the AAPI space and providing thought leadership, advocacy, and raising visibility for AAPI issues.

Please welcome Michelle Lee to our podcast.

Michelle, welcome.

That was such a nice intro.

No worries.

And Michelle was, of course, joining by the esteemed Seattle Magazine team, executive editor-in-chief Rob Smith, as well as the incomparable chief of opportunity, Linda Lowry.

Welcome, everyone.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Jonathan.

Hi, Michelle.

Hi.

It’s so great to see you and hear your voices.

No, Michelle, the very first question that I need to ask you, because we all miss you and we miss your effervescent and delightful presence in town, do you miss us?

Oh, my gosh.

Do you miss Seattle?

Yes, terribly, terribly.

It’s so funny because, apparently, I talk about Seattle so much that my new teammates in St.

Louis are always like, well, it’s not Seattle.

I always feel bad.

St.

Louis is a wonderful place, too.

But we’ll talk about something in the news.

And during the commercial break, I’ll say, you know, that company is in Seattle.

We’ve heard enough of Seattle.

Yes, I miss it terribly.

I miss it terribly.

I miss all the people.

I do love Seattle.

Yeah, and actually, in the follow-up question I want to ask you is– and of course, I’m somewhat leading the witness here– but what are some of these positive attributes of Seattle that you think about that are kind of only here?

And as you’ve moved away now to St.

Louis, you feel like, gosh, I really wish that maybe the rest of the country is like that.

And I’ll also ask the reverse question, too, which is, what do you think we’re missing in Seattle that we could do better at?

To me, it’s always the people.

The people always make a city wonderful.

And there’s just a vibe in Seattle that feels like everyone is working together to take a step forward, to make not only Seattle a better place to live, but the world.

And you know how some places just have– the vibrations just feel right.

And that’s how Seattle feels to me.

It just felt like my kind of place.

And just progressive, smart people, people who have a conscience, who want to do the right thing.

That’s what I love about Seattle.

My gosh, what can you do better?

Well, I’ll tell you what you can do better.

The convenience of St.

Louis is priceless.

So it takes 15 minutes to get everywhere, free parking, affordability.

Those make a huge difference in your quality of life issues.

And so coming back to Seattle, sometimes I get off the plane.

I’m like, oh, wow, this is going to take me an hour to get somewhere.

You forget about that.

Or the last event that we had in June when I went back to Seattle, some people missed the event because of traffic, because they had to come from the east side over to Edmunds.

And it was like, oh, I forgot.

So convenience would be better.

I don’t know how you do that.

But yeah, traffic, all that stuff, headaches like that.

So Michelle, you started the very Asian Foundation.

And I think a lot of people know that story.

But just for those who don’t, could you go over that real quick, the birth of this?

Oh, sure.

I did not wake up and say, let’s start a foundation.

We basically, as journalists or anyone who has put themselves in the public eye, gets criticized every now and then.

And by far, in a way, I’ve gotten criticized a million and one times over.

But I was working in St.

Louis, and I was on the air.

And I was talking about what Americans eat on New Year’s Day and why.

And I happened to mention, oh, I had dumpling soup, because that’s what a lot of Korean people do.

And really, that’s a very watered-down version, because Korean people actually eat like a rice cake soup.

They throw some dumplings in it.

But this woman called and said, I was very Asian.

I needed to keep my Korean to myself.

I was annoying.

I needed to talk about, well, why people ate?

Why people would get fired if they could talk about what they ate?

I mean, it just went kind of on and on.

And I shared that voicemail, and it went viral.

And not just like viral for St.

Louis or even the country, we ended up getting direct messages and messages from people all around the world, because we ended up selling very Asian shirts.

And so– and to raise money for a nonprofit, the Asian American Journalist Association.

So basically, when we did that, we went on The Ellen Show.

I say we.

I have a mouse in my pocket, apparently.

It was me and my friend Jia Vang, who is now an anchor in the Bay Area.

But at the time, she was in Minnesota.

And she’s the one who made the hashtag viral, because she said, I guess I’m being very Asian too.

And she shared a monk tradition.

So yeah, that’s how it started.

It started from a viral movement.

When Ellen Degeneres gave me money, it felt like we should do something with the money.

And not just pocket it and go on a vacation, but do something.

And so that’s what the seed money became for the foundation.

So what was your initial reaction?

And did you have any idea once you shared this, what was going to happen?

Oh my gosh, no.

You know, like I said, by far, that was not the first time someone had said something to me in my career.

It definitely wasn’t the worst thing that was said or done.

But when I went viral, I– well, I got really scared and totally panicked.

And had no idea that it would grow into something like this.

I can’t really describe the feeling of all the anxiety that I had.

I was afraid that I was going to lose my job.

I felt like, oh, Michelle, you really did it this time.

But it ended up being something really beautiful.

And I think because I never sold her out.

I never canceled her.

I never said, this is her name and this is who she is.

I felt really responsible for her once I went viral like that because I thought, oh gosh, so many people know this story.

And she doesn’t deserve to lose her livelihood because of something she said.

We all make mistakes.

Hers was a little brutal.

But I mean, in reality, she doesn’t deserve to lose her livelihood over that.

Well, and you’re a journalist and you’re just doing your job.

And now suddenly you’re sort of at the forefront of a movement.

I know.

Well, that’s why I thought I was going to lose my job.

I was so nervous.

And for many, many, many years, I think people would say things like, well, you can’t really cover immigration because you’re too close to that.

Or, well, you can’t really report on this because people will think X, Y, and Z.

Or we can’t have two Asian people because people might get confused.

I mean, people used to say all kinds of things.

And so what you end up doing is realizing that you are covering all these marginalized communities and telling all these stories that haven’t been told before, except for yours.

And I don’t need to have my story told as me.

But I definitely feel like we forget that, yes, I go into a story being as objective as possible.

But of course, I have a bias as a woman, as a mom, as an adoptee, or as a Korean-looking person, and all these things.

And I felt like I don’t want to be an Asian reporter, but I am a reporter who is Asian.

Yeah, yeah.

Now I get it.

And it’s our next issue that’s coming out for November, December.

We’re focusing on can we really be too woke?

And what do you think?

Are we too woke?

Oh, gosh.

I mean, that is a very tough question, too.

I don’t feel like we can be too woke.

I’m sure that there are people who could debate me and would want to fight me over it.

But I feel like as long as we’re trying to be authentic in our storytelling, be authentic as the people we are, and be honest, then I really feel like if that’s woke, then how can you be too honest?

But I definitely feel like there are political agendas and things that get in the crossfire and all those things.

But at the end of the day, if I’m doing a story on a student who is transgender and needs support in school, I look at that student as a person.

I’m not looking at that person as, oh, this is now a political issue.

And even when we talk about just people’s lived experiences, I can really see so many different perspectives.

Once you talk to someone and you go, oh, OK, well, that makes sense.

I understand why you feel that way.

So in most cases, I should say, not in all cases, but I would say in most cases that come from a really authentic place.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I appreciate that candid answer.

And the magazine would take the same position as you do, that if the term woke is really about being very aware of ways that we can do better, we can move forward as a society and be more inclusive and think about the perspective from marginalized communities and what their needs are, and to start to center the way that we do things as much about them as about anybody else, then I absolutely agree that you really can’t be too woke.

And we phrased it very delicately on our cover for the November, December issue, precisely to sort of bring up that question and to have debate around it.

Now, as the term has changed for better or for worse, the term woke and it’s been sort of co-opted by others, it now is the centerpiece of a bunch of conversations really that we’re trying to invite people to have very civilly.

And I think that that’s one of the things that I think about a lot.

And I want to segue to something that Michelle, you seem to be a real expert in dealing with.

You’ve done your 10,000 hours of dealing with this, which is as someone who is out there on social media.

And I love the way that you handled that viral movement where at the same time you brought awareness to the issue, but you were also in a very, I think, unusual way protective of the other person because you realized some things.

What are some of those things that you realized that’s kind of like the downside to going viral for sort of the wrong reasons?

What are– Oh, my gosh.

Well, I mean, if we could all be judged on one moment in our life, how terrible would that be?

And also, I think about all the things that I have said or participated in in my past that I wouldn’t be proud of.

Yeah, I would love to be here on this podcast saying, I’ve never done anything wrong in my life.

I’ve never said anything bad or done anything horrible.

And I’m not saying that was ever– I’ve never been like a malicious person.

But the reality is language changes.

We evolve as people.

The same things that were funny 20 and 30 years ago don’t hold up today.

So I think that that is a reality.

And people also react in emotion, react out of anger, all those different things.

I don’t think people should be held to one moment in time for the rest of their lives.

And when that moment went viral, I was thinking, oh, my gosh.

Like, what if this person– I mean, I really kind of took it this way.

I was like, what if this person self-harms or loses her job or does something because of this voicemail?

Like, yes, this voicemail sucked.

But it was like not the worst thing that’s ever happened to me or humanity.

And let’s just learn from it and move on.

And plus, I think as a journalist, too, I also want to be cognizant of like, I put myself out there on television every day.

And that doesn’t mean I like hay mail or anything like that.

But I certainly am there for people to see.

And of course, I have an expectation that I will receive criticism.

I’d like constructive criticism better.

Got it.

Yeah, no really thoughtful answer.

And I guess my follow-up question to that is what advice would you give to say, if you can pretend that your son is a little older, maybe 10 years, what advice would you give him about how to conduct oneself on social media?

Oh my gosh.

I really kind of hope that someone else figures that out for me because I’m hoping that in 10 years, we’ll have a better grasp of what our screens and our mental wellness and how that all that’s impacted by social media.

But I do feel like social media can be so powerful and wonderful and then at the same time, so destructive and awful.

And we see that in research and data, how kids are reacting.

And adults too, it’s not just kids.

But I just saw something on NBC News today that this generation of children will spend 30 years, the equivalent of 30 years on a screen.

And so I get my reports on my phone all the time.

And I’m like, was I really online for seven hours today?

Maybe I just didn’t shed an app.

But then I think, well, you know, there are lots of things that I don’t miss on social media either.

So I feel like engaging in vitriol is not the answer on social media.

So I would definitely recommend not doing that.

But also sometimes you don’t have to react to everything.

That was one little quote that I saw on social media.

And I was like, yes, that’s true.

We don’t have to react to everything that we read.

I understand that the woman who made that comment to you has since reached out to you.

And do you have any sort of ongoing relationship right now or what was that interaction like?

No.

So the night that I did my commentary, it was like three days later, she is a news watcher.

And so she called and apologized.

And you know what, that really like deflated any kind of negative feelings I had.

You know, will we be best friends?

Probably not.

But in reality, I think in your head, you think, if I ever had a chance to say something, I would say X, Y, and Z.

And I went, da, da, da, da, da.

And then when someone calls and they say, hey, I’m sorry.

What are you supposed to do?

You know, it was like so brave, I think, for her to call, because she certainly didn’t have to.

And so then we just had a conversation.

And I think we probably still are on different ends of certain spectrums.

But in reality, I have a lot of respect for her for making that phone call and for apologizing.

Yeah.

How active are you right now with a very Asian foundation?

You and your co-founder?

Because you guys do a lot of stuff, a lot of the projects, a lot of the events.

You won an award from the Asian American professionals.

The St.

Louis Cardinals game, you know, you honored people.

You’re getting a lot of publicity for this, obviously.

Do you run this thing day to day or how does that work?

Yes, day to day.

Day to day, day and night, weekend’s 24/7.

It’s a baby.

It is literally a newborn baby.

And, you know, everyone says, you know, starting a nonprofit is like starting a business.

Well, I’ve never started a business before, but I can understand why because we have finances.

We have, you know, checking to deal with.

We have invoices.

We have decks to make and all these different things.

And we have a lot of events.

And we do all these things with three core people.

Jia Vang is the other co-founder.

Suji Hong is our executive director.

And then there’s me.

And Jia and I have day jobs that’s kind of, you know, our hours are kind of difficult and our topics are difficult.

And then Suji is very busy.

She is a senior in high school and then she has a college age student as well.

So she, I mean, we’re, but, you know, I feel like when you’re determined to do something and when you feel the need to meet a moment or, you know, answer a call, then it doesn’t feel necessarily like work.

But at the same time, you, you know, you’re very aware that it is work and some things can leave you exhausted.

But, but it’s, it’s great.

And I think, you know, as we go into year two, you know, we really want to grow, be sustainable, grow our board, all those different things.

Now you’re having your very first foundation luncheon on Sunday and it’s here in Seattle.

Why is it here in Seattle, not in St.

Louis?

So our programs either have benefited Seattle or started in Seattle.

So our creators micro grant program actually started with Dr.

Kat Lu.

She runs subtle Asian baking and she has like 150,000 people in her community.

And she actually left healthcare during the pandemic to focus on baking.

And so there are so many, I think, Asian Americans who may feel like they could not do the things that they wanted to do, maybe because of money or because of culture.

And so now they want to pivot.

Sometimes it’s really hard to hit a certain period in your life and want to switch gears.

I think if we can help champion people who want to chase their dreams, even in a micro grant, it’s really fulfilling for us.

And I mean, in like a few days, we had 200 applications.

We only gave five micro grants.

So there’s a real need, I think, for people to feel that support.

And speaking of programs, you’re working on a The May Book Project as well.

Yes.

For you’re providing thoughtful suggestions on books.

Can you name a couple of books that we should read or maybe some films as well?

Oh, gosh, sure.

So let me just say The May Book Project is like a three pronged approach at adding Asian American youth literature to libraries.

And it’s for all readers.

So you’ve got this.

Well, let me go back in time just a second because it started as a way to solve a problem for students.

So there are some students during the pandemic who said, hey, we really want to get Asian American books in our school libraries.

And so there’s a civic organization in St.

Louis that came together and they go to various schools and they wrote this letter and they came up with a book list.

And they said, will you please buy some of these books for our schools?

And unfortunately, I know educators, so I know that like it wasn’t malicious, but literally zero schools responded.

And it was really heartbreaking for those students because you, of course, as a student, you really want to be seen in schools.

You really want to be seen where it matters most.

And what was happening is that they felt invisible in school, but then they would go to the grocery store and someone would say, go back to China or speak our language or you’re the reason we’ve got China virus.

Now, you could say, oh, that must be St.

Louis.

But I started the pandemic in Seattle, if you remember.

And so that was happening in Seattle.

That was happening in New York.

That was happening in California.

It was happening everywhere.

And we know how dangerous that rhetoric is.

And we also know now that Asian American youth, the number one cause of death is suicide.

There’s a lot of like mental health resources that just aren’t available.

Anyway, so some of these students had just side-chat and said, you know, we either have friends or have self-harmed or have come up with suicide plans.

And so I said, that sounds like a long-term goal for us.

But it seems like the easiest thing that we can do is get your books in schools.

And so they gave me their list and then we said, OK, we’re not experts.

Like, we have no idea what we’re doing.

So we worked with Apollo, which is the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association, another nonprofit called We Need Diverse Books.

We worked with national scholars all across the country.

So people who literally have PhDs in children’s literature.

So it’s a book project with a book list of like 250 books for all ages.

It’s also a rubric so that a librarian can have an academic approach to building a diverse library.

And then the third thing is just a community toolkit so that anyone can say, hey, I want to build a library.

And what do I need to know?

Now, I have a very, very simple question to ask when it comes to books.

I happen to have a book that’s near and dear to my heart that you wrote.

And I found it so helpful.

Really?

Because, yes, because, because, because Michelle, as you know, what you and I have in common is that we’re both Korean American.

You were fully adopted.

I was sort of I say that I was half adopted.

But but but where you and I differ is that and I wonder if this is also somewhat now that I’m thinking of it potentially a gender thing.

But but but I am a lot less in touch with Korean culture than I think you are.

I think that you’ve taken some very, very concerted steps throughout your your young life and your adult life to to get more sort of steeped in Korean culture.

And and so I would love for you as such a polymath who does so much in this multi so multi talented talk about the book that you wrote.

Oh, my gosh.

OK, well, thank you for the book.

I, you know, when I went viral, this woman reached out to me, her name’s Karen Chan.

She said, would you like to write a book?

And I said, can I do that?

And she actually left being an entertainment attorney lawyer to be in publishing.

And so I wrote this book with her, a very Asian guide to Korean food.

And really, I think for me in speaking about like just having a response to being very Asian, it’s like, you know, Korean tacos are really popular right now or Korean fried chicken.

And so whenever I think about American culture specifically, I don’t necessarily think, OK, sure, we can talk about kimchi, we can talk about beamen bop, we can talk about all the traditional Korean foods and they’re wonderful.

But also don’t forget that we have created, well, I should say Korean fried chicken is not necessarily didn’t originate in America.

But, you know, I mean, it’s the idea that we have our own thing going on too.

And also, I think sometimes that makes it also accessible for a lot of communities.

You know, and so to me, as an adoptee, there was a lot of work that had to be done with that because I know why I like I know that I like food.

I don’t necessarily know the history behind food.

And I worked with, well, we did a lot of we did a lot of research.

Plus, I worked with my Korean family that I’m connected with.

And so my sister was like, oh, yeah, you know, with Kimbap, we used to make it, you know, for our school lunches and our picnics and all those things.

So just adding little tidbits like that.

But really, it was just to kind of showcase what I thought would be a modern book about Korean food.

I actually just had a really nice dinner with some adoptees, some transracial adoptees in DC for an event that I just did.

And it was so nice because candidly, people were saying as adoptees, it’s really intimidating to even be at a table at a restaurant where they serve, you know, Korean food, I’m worried about my pronunciation, pronunciation.

I’m worried about if I’m going to be judged because I can’t use chopsticks very well, you know, all those little things.

And I do feel like that sometimes when I’m around other Asian Americans, when I’m around other Korean Koreans, when I’m around, you know, when I’m in certain groups, because I think everyone has this idea that you just have this knowledge.

Well, you know, sometimes it takes a little bit more work.

And yeah, and I still do get nervous.

Like, oh, did I say that right?

You know, I’ll have the number four.

Sometimes it just gets really intimidating.

But I realized that’s the human experience.

None of us really know.

And none, anyone who grew up in America, if they go back to like their origin or their first or their birth or whatever country, none of us fit in 100%.

They know they know that you did not grow up in whatever country, you know, so.

But it doesn’t mean you’re less, less Korean just because you didn’t grow up in Korea.

Michelle, I am also adopted.

Oh, wow.

And I have a nice relationship with my birth mom who lives in Florida right now.

But I know you have been involved in some, for lack of a better term, some adoption advocacy organizations.

Tell us a little bit about your work there and why that’s been so important to you.

Well, you know, I think being adopted is was a huge part of my identity.

And I think that that was really apparent for me growing up in the Midwest specifically and being the only Asian person I felt like in the county, you know, and to me, I just really took an interest in Korean culture, probably when I was a teenager.

It just gave me a lot more confidence and not really necessarily about Korean culture, I should say, it was more so meeting other adoptees.

To feel like I wasn’t the only one, like I could say, oh, yeah, my friend Parker, he grew up in Parsons, Kansas.

Like, you know, he’s the only one in his town, too.

So that was that was powerful.

And then there were just kind of this at the time in the 90s, there was a group of us.

There were group was a group there were a bunch of us end up going back to Korea at different times.

And so experiencing the country in that way is life changing, no matter, you know, what what that ends up being for you could be a reunion could not be a reunion.

For me, it was a reunion and that really changed my life.

And at an early age, it was I’m only 18 when I met my birth family.

So now I’ve known my birth family longer than not knowing them.

And what does an integrated family look like in that sense?

And then also I help my second oldest sister immigrate to Seattle.

And so she lived with me in Seattle, which I’ve never honestly, I’ve never heard of a story like that.

And then I was like, you got to get out.

So I put her on Bumble.

And then she met her husband in Seattle.

And and now they both live in Dallas, but she still actually is a translator for King County.

But, you know, it’s people really really don’t think of how hard adoption can be in many ways.

They’re just it’s, you know, it’s trauma in many aspects because you lose something.

You also gain something.

But, you know, sometimes you have unanswered questions and all those things.

And then, you know, for someone like me, when you add culture into it, it can be really confusing too.

Yeah, I would I would definitely corroborate that.

I think this is a story for another podcast another day because because today is about you, Michelle.

But I as I think I shared with you, I met my Korean American father, my birth father, for the first time when I was about 50 years old.

And over the last six years, it’s been a really interesting journey of discovery that is mixed in there.

It’s indelibly fused with what it means to be Korean.

And there are days, most days are really good days for me in that journey.

And some days are a little head scratching for me as a someone as as we both alluded to earlier, in terms of feeling like you have credibility or or or know as much about Korean culture as someone who was more steeped in it before.

And so I sometimes take two steps forward, one step back in terms of my relationship there, still trying to figure it out, but but just here to absolutely underscore that it’s very complex.

It’s very complex.

It is really hard.

And you know, I always say this adoption in general kind of has been in the narrative voice of the parents and the adoption agency for a long time.

And I do think that adoptees are getting power in their voice again.

But it comes at this, you know, kind of controversial angle where some people are saying, oh, well, you’re not grateful then because, you know, you’re adopted.

You should be grateful and all these different things.

And I always say there’s nothing glamorous about adoption.

I mean, can you have a great family and can you be loved and can you have all these things?

Absolutely.

But there I always say like, I think some people think adoption is such a privilege that you can’t have any hard feelings about it or complex feelings about it.

And I always say there’s nothing glamorous about orphanage life or foster care or, you know, losing that connection to potentially.

You know, your origin story.

And there’s so many things that are really complex.

So many things that I took part of in the 90s and early 2000s like adoptee tours.

You know, we’d escort babies back to the United States and hand them off at the gate, you know, to their new parents and all these things.

I don’t know if I would take, I would participate in something like that again today.

But, you know, back in back when I was 19 and 20, that was part of the tour and I and I would do that.

You know, we also went and visited unwed mothers homes and and talk to women who were about ready to link with their babies.

And I don’t know if I would do that again either.

You know, it was just a lot of really heavy emotional stuff on those tours.

Wow.

Well, yeah, there’s definitely a lot that we can talk about.

But I’m curious to know specifically, because this is a unique opportunity with you.

Do you have a different position now that you might take?

Or should I assume that there is a different position with regards to white families adopting a non-white child from overseas?

I know that there’s some complexity there these days.

Right.

Some people call it white state of your own, depending on, you know, the situation.

I definitely have met people who would probably fall under that title and category.

But in reality, you know, when you if you have the opportunity to go to a place like Korea and see the orphanages or meet the mothers.

You realize that, you know, babies are still getting born.

And in a place like Korea, unfortunately, I don’t believe that the country of Korea takes care of those children.

I mean, they will house them in the orphanage and all those things.

But there is kind of this this thing like once you’re an orphan, you’re always an orphan.

And so, you know, you don’t have the family registry, so you can’t necessarily get a good job.

You can’t necessarily go to a great school.

So I definitely feel like there is there are it’s more complex than sometimes people let on.

But there are definitely people who shouldn’t be adopting, you know, and at the same time, you know, sometimes stories can be really beautiful.

I feel like my story is a really happy one.

So did that mean that my life was 100% easy?

Absolutely not.

I mean, my parents were laborers.

You know, I grew up in a blue collar family and we were we were, you know, challenge, you know, so.

But I wouldn’t change my life.

I feel really blessed.

But it hasn’t been easy by any means.

Yeah, you know, the circumstances of my adoption were much different than yours.

But my life was clearly better because I was adopted.

Yeah.

And my birth mother has told me that, you know, if you knew the circumstances again, a different day.

So you’re a Midwest kid.

Yeah, you know, you went to the University of Kansas.

You worked in Wisconsin.

You came to Seattle.

Now you’re back in St.

Louis.

Yes.

Yet you still identify very strongly with Seattle.

What is it about the Midwest that keeps pulling you back?

Well, you know what?

So the reality was when we came back to the Midwest, it was because of the pandemic.

I mean, it really just broke us.

We were like, what are we doing out as far west as possible when we have no help?

You know, work isn’t equitable.

You know, I mean, it was just it was so hard at the time to be a mother of a one year old during the pandemic.

And then I thought, you know, what are we doing out here?

My daycare shut down.

My job changed.

And then the final straw was that my mom passed away.

And so my dad at the time was sending me his mail because that was how they lived.

You know, my mom would do all the bills and all these things.

And and in a way, I felt like I was the daughter of an immigrant, you know, because it was like I was doing all this interpreting for him, you know, and taking care of all this stuff.

So it was just really hard.

And so we decided to come back.

But that being said, I do really like, for the most part, Midwest sensibility.

I do like the grit and the heart of the Midwest.

It doesn’t mean that there’s not grit and heart in the Pacific Northwest either.

But there’s just something about life and like just values that I like.

I mean, I like values in the Pacific Northwest, too.

So I don’t know if I’m really making sense.

But but there is something special about the Midwest.

And I think people overlook the Midwest because it’s flyover country.

But there are really cool people in the Midwest, too.

And a lot of great things happening here.

One other question I want to ask you, Michelle, is, you know, what do you want?

Taking it back to the very Asian Foundation.

What do you want the community to take away from engaging with the Foundation?

I think that at the end of the day, when people say, what is very Asian?

Because they don’t know the story.

I say very Asian to me is really just about living your true self and being able to bring your full humanity to the spaces that you’re in.

Because we have so much solidarity in very Asian.

It wasn’t just like, OK, only Asian people can like this.

So many people have have friends, family members, you know, or multiracial or maybe are Asian but don’t have their stories told, you know, at the top of the diaspora, you know, certain stories kind of float to the top.

And then the rest of us, especially adoptees growing up in the Midwest, don’t really get like their say.

And so I feel like to really say, we all have experiences that matter.

And we all deserve to build our community and be who we are.

That’s really what I want.

And so I think so far, knock on wood, we have been able to avoid any kind of controversy because even in that moment when I went viral, I was thinking, what kind of response am I going to have?

Not knowing what it would lead to, right?

Not knowing that me having a commentary would lead to an Elangio appearance in this foundation.

But I thought I can’t sell out the people who have supported me, my family, my friends, who are also not Asian, you know?

I can’t sell those people out because we are all in it together.

And there are people in my life who are not Asian who would die for me, you know, like my parents and all these things.

So I just felt like there’s more than one experience of being Asian, you know?

Granted, very Asian is kind of a funny word for that.

But I just really want people to feel confident in who they are because we’re all getting more multiracial and mixed and we’re evolving in different ways.

So I think it’s important that we all feel proud of who we are no matter what percentage of whatever we are.

And with that, Michelle, we’re definitely going to offer our readers and our listeners links to your various programs and to your website.

I just really appreciate the time and the interest.

I adore you all and just really — I’m just really grateful.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here and delighting us and our readers with your stories.

We appreciate you.

And break a leg at your event this weekend.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Cheers.

Thank you, everyone.

We miss you in Seattle, Michelle.

Bye.

Thank you for listening to the Seattle Magazine podcast.

You can always find us on seattlemag.com.

Look for new episodes approximately every two weeks on our website.

A special thank you to the entire Seattle Magazine staff and to podcast producer Nick Petri.

Contact Lisa Lee at [email protected] for partnership opportunities.

Until next time, let’s keep celebrating Seattle. [end of transcript] [MUSIC]