Awkwafina said she had a mind-blowing experience after learning backstage she made history at the Golden Globes.
The rapper and actress became the first woman of Asian descent - her father is Chinese American and her mother is South Korean - to win a Globe for best actress in a musical or comedy for her starring role in The Farewell. She's best known for her comic role in Crazy Rich Asians.
Awkwafina says she has more to prove. "It's mind-blowing,'' she said. "It feels incredible. There's also another feeling that you're going to do more. I hope this is just the beginning.''
Awkwafina plays a young woman in a Chinese family that is keeping their matriarch's cancer a secret from her in director Lulu Wang's The Farewell. She said she particularly related to the film.
"Immigrants in this country who were raised to feel very American and when we go back where, you know, we're told that you don't belong here and you go back to where you belong," she said. "You feel like a stranger there And that's what really resonated with me."
The win is part of a breakout two-year run for the 31-year-old actress, who had a breakthrough year in 2018 after appearances in Crazy Rich Asians and Ocean's 8. She may now see an Academy Award nomination, though best actress winners in the Globes' separate comedy category don't always see Oscar nods.
Another Asian entry, South Korean black comedy Parasite, bagged the award for best foreign language film, as widely expected.
