Awkwafina talks Asian American representation and Marvel as Allure's latest cover star

This month's Allure cover star is Awkwafina, a.k.a. Nora Lum, the rapper-turned-comedy and dramatic and action and sci-fi – you name it – actor, and who co-stars in Marvel's upcoming Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and is currently filming the second season of Nora from Queens, her Comedy Central sitcom.

The star was photographed by an all-Asian team, and interviewed by Michelle Lee, Allure's editor-in-chief, who first met Lum in June 2018, a month before the release of Crazy Rich Asians, the movie that marked her breakout moment. That same month, Lee noted on her Instagram, was when Allure had only had two Asian cover stars in its 28-year history. This month, however, Lum is the 10th Asian person to make the cover – in just the last three years.

But their reuniting took on even more special significance, as they spoke just days after the Atlanta spa shootings on March 16, in which eight people were killed, six of them Asian women.

"I was raised by a working-class, Asian American woman, so to see that, and the videos of all these other things, is very triggering," Lum said. "It’s a helplessness. My dad commutes into work and I worry about him and...it’s that powerlessness. Because, well, how could you help them?”

Lee writes, "That specific tragedy hit her hard because she saw herself and her loved ones in the story ... That vulnerability is particularly acute when she thinks about that Asian American woman who raised her — her grandmother — and her father."

Lum added, “This insane, heinous, horrible crime of terrorism was against a group of Asian people that are often ignored in the conversation, especially when you bring in the model minority myth: working-class, Asian immigrants — Asian Americans. We have to think about their safety as well. ... I probably learned more about the implications of my culture from being mocked on the street than I did from actually being at home. I knew that some of those stereotypes were very not true and that’s where I thought, 'Well, that’s bullshit.'”

If you know Lum's origin story, then you know her mother died when she was just four years old, of pulmonary hypertension, and she was raised in Queens by her father and grandmother in a one-bedroom apartment where creativity filled the gap and life was "a mishmash of two different cultures within that Chinese identity.”

Lum also talked about her entering the Marvel universe, of which she said, “There’s something just so awesome about entering that [Marvel] universe. There is an electricity on set. I’m really excited for it.” (But don't expect any other details, Lum stayed mum!)

The profile is worth a read in its entirety, with Lum also touching on just how wild the last few years have been for her, and what's kept her grounded: “Something I’m most proud of is that I’ve always treated people with the kindness and respect that I was shown. I’m just still blown away that this is a thing. You know what I mean? It’s hard for me to process.” 

BEFORE YOU GO: Sandra Oh and Awkwafina to play sisters in new comedy

[video_embed id='2066960']BEFORE YOU GO: Sandra Oh and Awkwafina to play sisters in new comedy[/video_embed]