Bowen Yang made history on Tuesday (13 July) after receiving an Emmy nomination for his work on Saturday Night Live.
In addition to being the first Chinese American to receive the nomination, he is also the first castmember to receive an Emmy nomination after only two seasons on the show.
In 2018, subsequent to spending one year as a writer, the 30-year-old podcaster became the first Asian-American to join the main cast of SNL.
SNL announced the news of Yang’s nomination on Twitter. They wrote: “Bowen Yang making history as the first featured player to be nominated for an Emmy. CONGRATS!”
Yang has brought many now-iconic SNL characters to life, including Flint the SoulCycle instructor, and the iceberg that sank the Titanic.
He also received praise for his speech on anti-Asian hate crimes in the US.
“Things for Asians in this country (US) have been bleak for the past two weeks... and all the weeks before that since forever, but there’s a lot of work to do and I found some posts online with action items everyone can take to help,” he said during the 29 March episode.
Yang ended his skit by saying: “Look, I’m just a comedian, I don’t have the answers. But I’m not just looking for them online, I’m looking around me. The GoFundMe for Xiao Zhen Xie, the grandmother who fought back against her attackers, raised $900,000, which she immediately gave back to the community. That’s where we are as Asians. Now come meet us there.”
In 2018, Canadian-American actor Sandra Oh became the first Asian-American woman to be nominated as lead actress for drama Killing Eve.
Before Oh, actors Archie Panjabi and Riz Ahmed received Emmy awards in 2010 and 2017 respectively.
You can find a full list of this year’s Emmy nominations here.
