Nora Lum, popularly known as Awkwafina, is an Asian-American actress, comedian, internet personality, rapper, author, and television host. After a viral rap video she made in 2012, the humorous comedian has gained fame and starred in movies such as Crazy Rich Asians (2018), Ocean’s 8 (2018), and The Farewell (2019).
Born to a New York City painter and South Korean immigrant Tia, who passed when she was four, and Chinese-American father Wally, Lum grew up in Forest Hills, Queens, New York She was raised by her father and grandparents, becoming especially close with her grandmother. (Wikipedia)
Lum attended LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts where she played the trumpet and was trained in classical music and jazz.
She adapted the stage name “Awkwafina” at the age of 16, an alter ego to her more “quiet and possessive” personality during her college years. She majored in journalism and women’s studies at the Albany State University of New York and attended Beijing Language and Culture University in China where she studied Mandarin, from 2006 to 2008.
The 2012 internet viral video cost her a job in book publicity but set her on the beginning to film and television stardom. In 2019, as well as her award-winning lead performance in The Farewell, she co-created and starred in the series Awkwafina is Nora from Queens.
In an interview, Lum expressed her Awkwafina side: “She comes in so many ways, she represents that universal aspect of confidence – that voice you reach into when you need to pick yourself up.”
Though her acting career has spiraled upward, Awkwafina has no plans to leave music behind. In 2018, she described to Rolling Stone, the turning point in her life from her low budgeted music video, “I didn’t expect anything to happen. There was no game plan. I had nothing to lose y’know. And to this day, everything that has happened to me — my first movie gig, my first music gig — was all from that.”
The artist reminds herself and others to stay humble and never give up, nor forget where you started from.