Until 2020, she was a senior reporter in the Millbrae, California office of the World Journal, the largest[1] Chinese-language newspaper in the United States.
[4][5] In 2020, Li founded the weekly Chinese-English bilingual Wind Newspaper / 風報, covering the San Francisco region.
Li came to the US in 1984, continued her education with a master's degree from Utah State University, and started reporting in San Francisco for the World Journal in 1986.
[8] She was one of the speakers at the Ascend conference sponsored by the Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs Association (APAPA), the Asian Studies Department of the City College of San Francisco, the Japan Policy Research Institute and the Center on the Pacific Rim at USF, and the Stanford Center for East Asia Studies.
San Francisco Police Chief Fred Lau said, "Portia was going 120 miles an hour," during a press conference, "We said, 'Hey, maybe this [her investigation] is something that people are interested in.