Sunday night, Awkwafina made history at the 2020 Golden Globes as the first woman of Asian descent to win a trophy for best lead actress in a movie comedy/musical.
The win came for her role in the Lulu Wang-directed The Farewell in which the rapper-turned-actress plays the role of an American woman named Billi who suffers through a terminal diagnosis while her family keeps it away from her grandmother back in China.
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“I’d like to dedicate this to my dad, Wally. I told you I’d get a job, Dad,” she said before concluding in her speech. “To my grandma, my best friend, the woman who raised me. And to my mother, Tia, who I always hope is watching from somewhere above, and I hope that she’s watching now.”
Last year, Awkwafina's Crazy Rich Asians co-star Constance Wu was also nominated for the same category, losing out to Olivia Colman in The Favourite. She is joined by the likes of Sandra Oh, who claimed a historic win to take home the Golden Globe for lead actress in a TV drama last year for her work on Killing Eve, making her the first actor of Asian descent to win more than one Golden Globe.