AFRICAN PROFILE MAGAZINE

Lupita Amondi Nyong'o is a Kenyan actress and music video director. She appeared in Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave (2013) as Patsey, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, the Screen Actors Guild and Critics' Choice Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in addition to receiving nominations for the Golden Globe and the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress. She is the second black actress (afterJennifer Hudson) to receive an Academy Award for a film debut. Nyong'o was born in Mexico City, Mexico, to Dorothy and Peter Anyang' Nyong'o, a politician in Kenya. It is a Luo tradition to name a child after the events of the day, so her parents named her Lupita (a diminutive of "Guadalupe" Our Lady of Guadalupe). She is of completely Luo descent on both sides of her family, and is the second of six children. Her father was the former Kenyan Minister for Medical Services. At the time of Lupita's birth, he was a visiting lecturer in political science at El Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City, and her family had been living in Mexico for three years.

Nyong'o moved back to Kenya with her parents when she was less than one year old, when her father was appointed a professor at the University of Nairobi. She grew up primarily in Kenya, and describes her upbringing as "middle class, suburban". At age sixteen, her parents sent her back to Mexico for seven months to learn Spanish. During those seven months, Nyong'o lived in Taxco, Mexico, and took classes at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico's Learning Center for Foreigners. In 2013, her father was elected to represent Kisumu County in the Kenyan Senate. Nyong'o's mother is currently the managing director of the Africa Cancer Foundation and her own communications company. Her cousin Tavia Nyong'o is a scholar and professor at New York University. In 2012, her older cousin, Isis Nyong'o, was named one of Africa's most powerful women by Forbes magazine. Her uncle, Aggrey Nyong'o a prominent Kenyan physician was killed in a road accident in 2002.

Nyong'o currently resides in Brooklyn. She is fluent in her native Luo, English, Swahili and Spanish. On February 27, 2014, at the Essence Black Women In Hollywood luncheon in Beverly Hills, Lupita gave a speech on black beauty. Lupita talked about a letter she received from a young fan who stated she was unhappy with herself until she saw the actress on the cover of a magazine. In her speech Lupita talked about the insecurities she had about herself as a teenager; growing up as a dark skinned black girl, women that looked like her were barely portrayed in the media and when they were, they were not deemed as being beautiful. 

She said her views about herself changed when she saw South Sudanese supermodel Alek Wek become successful. "When I saw Alek I inadvertently saw a reflection of myself that I could not deny,” she added. “Now, I had a spring in my step because I felt more seen, more appreciated by the far away gatekeepers of beauty".