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The show was filled with back-and-forth banter as Cola asked some audience members to express their pet peeves and others to guess her age.

“I feel like I’m at Coachella right now,” Cola said Tuesday as she took center stage in Goldstein Auditorium.

University Union and the Office of Multicultural Affairs hosted Cola for Syracuse University’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month Commemorative Speaker event. Cola is best known for her roles in “Joy Ride” (2023) and the Freeform series “Good Trouble.” She most recently starred in “The Tiger’s Apprentice,” alongside Sandra Oh, Henry Golding and Michelle Yeoh.

Cola is a rising star in the entertainment industry and named one of “11 Asian American comics who killed it this year” by Entertainment Weekly. Her Tuesday show was one of many events of SU’s AAPI Heritage Month programming.

“I think being a part of the AAPI community is everything. I’m an immigrant. I’m Chinese American. I’m also part of the LGBTQ+ community and I’m also a woman,” Cola said. “We were brainwashed into thinking they were weaknesses.”

A Shanghai, China, native, Cola didn’t see many entertainers who looked like her growing up. Now, she embraces her identity as a superpower. Her tenure on “Good Trouble” helped Cola recognize these powers. She said “Joy Ride” was the first film of its kind as it featured Asian Americans in an R-rated setting.

“The journey is the dream when it comes to being someone like me in the industry ‘cause I feel like society never really rooted for any of my identities, and yet we are resilient,” Cola said.

To Cola, there’s not an “I made it” moment, she said. Her high-profile projects have been both fulfilling and humbling. She originally started on radio and never loses sight of these roots. After being featured on “The View” and “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” she thanked trailblazers like Michelle Yeoh and Ali Wong who paved the way for Asian actors. These moments also remind her that opportunities must be earned.

Her show on Tuesday was intimate — ranging in topics from pet peeves to college life. The audience was entranced by infectious jokes as she called out to audience members. SU sophomore Belinda Chan was part of this crowd. She watched Cola’s 2023 film “Shortcomings” and was drawn to her humor. Other audience members were just happy that SU was hosting an AAPI comedian.

“Personally, I don’t really know her but I was glad that there’s someone part of the AAPI community who’s doing stand-up,” SU creative writing student Daphnee Chu said. “I feel like we don’t have a lot of those.”

Cola is always thrilled to do events at colleges and universities, she said. She saw comedian Paul Ogata during her years at California State University, Fullerton. This experience shaped her and led her to Tuesday’s show at SU, she said. Performances like these are vision boards for students who don’t know where to start.

“I’m pretty sure there will be a lot of people in the audience who don’t know who I am,” Cola said. “But just being a student and watching someone express through their craft is really special and that’s what happened to me. That’s the impact it made on me when I saw Paul perform.”

Tuesday’s show ended with a Q&A session hosted by SU senior Celine Wang. Cola described her experiences as a queer woman of color in the film industry.

“It took a while for me to realize that me being unapologetically in my skin and loud about it is only going to be an advantage, but it is terrifying,” Cola said. “Because society, Hollywood, this country thinks of you a certain way and wants you to settle for less. No, we need to take up space.”

Published on April 11, 2024 at 12:03 am