Deborah A. Miranda is a Native American writer, poet, and professor of English at Washington and Lee University. Her father, Alfred Edward Robles Miranda is from the Esselen and Chumash people, native to the Santa Barbara/Santa Ynez/Monterey, California area. Her mother, Madgel Eleanor (Yeoman) Miranda was of French and Jewish ancestry. Miranda is a descendant of what are known as "Mission Indians," indigenous peoples of many Southern California tribes who were forcibly removed from their land into several Franciscan missions. She is an enrolled member of the Ohlone-Costanoan Esselen Nation.