Biography:

Lupita Amondi Nyong'o (born 1 March 1983) is a Kenyan actress, film director, and music video director. She made her American film debut in Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave (2013) as Patsey, for which she received critical acclaim. For her role Nyong'o won the Screen Actors Guild and Critics' Choice Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, and was nominated for the Golden Globe, BAFTA and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

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 Luo descent 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. Nyong'o lived in Taxco, Mexico, and took classes at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico's Learning Center For Foreigners. Lupita Nyong'o is not of Mexican descent nor citizenship, despite various media outlets stating that as the case.

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, was a prominent Kenyan physician, killed in a road accident in 2002.

Nyong'o currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. She is fluent in English, Spanish, Swahili, and Luo.

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