Nora Lum professionally known as Awkwafina, is an American actress, rapper and a comedian. She was born on the 2rd of June, 1988, in Stony Brook, New York, on Long Island, to a Chinese American father, Wally, and a Korean mother, tia, a painter who immigrated to the United States from South Korea in 1972.
Lum grew up in Forest Hills, Queens. Her mother died from pulmonary hypertension when Lum was four years of age and was raised by her father and paternal grandparents, becoming especially close to her paternal grandmother.
Lum attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High school, where she played the trumpet and was trained in classical music and jazz. At age 15, she adopted the stage name Awkwafina.
From 2006 to 2008, she learned Mandarin at the Beijing language and culture University to communicate with her paternal grandmother without barriers. She majored in journalism and women’s studies at the university at Albany, State University of New York and graduated in 2011.
Awkwafina is a Chinese!
