Born in Mexico, Lupita Nyong'o grew up in an artistic family in Kenya. She self identifies as Kenyan-Mexican with dual citizenship. She came to the U.S. for higher studies and received a BA from Hampshire College. She graduated with an MFA degree from Yale School of Drama in 2012. In her youth spent in Kenya, she was active in theater, starred in a TV series, and directed and produced the documentary In My Genes about the discriminatory treatment of Kenya's albino population in 2009.

Shina Kan was born on the island of Honshu in 1899. She completed her undergraduate studies at Japan Women’s University and spent a year at the Punahou School in Hawaii. She attended Yale Divinity School courses and received her Ph.D in Philosophy from Yale Graduate School in 1927. Later in life, she took additional courses in social welfare at Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary in New York.