Deborah A. Miranda is a Native American writer, poet, and professor of English at

Washington and Lee University , mottoeng = "Not Unmindful of the Future" , established = , type = Private liberal arts university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.092 billion (2021) , president = William C. Dudley , provost = Lena Hill , city = Lexington ...

. Her father, Alfred Edward Robles Miranda is from the Esselen and

Chumash people The Chumash are a Native American people of the central and southern coastal regions of California, in portions of what is now San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties, extending from Morro Bay in the north to Mali ...

, 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 Mission Indians are the indigenous peoples of California who lived in Southern California and were forcibly relocated from their traditional dwellings, villages, and homelands to live and work at 15 Franciscan missions in Southern California and ...

," 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.

Life, Education and career

At a young age, Miranda experienced family trauma. When she was three, her father was sentenced to prison, and her mother moved the family to

Washington state Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. Named for George Washington—the first U.S. president—the state was formed from the western part of the Washington ...

. As another example, when she was 7, after her family moved, a friend of her mothers had raped her. Growing up in a new state without her father, Miranda questioned her identity, and used writing as a way to make sense of her family history. When father was released from prison, he and her mother started to get back to their tribal roots. To escape her family trauma, she married her high school teacher and moved in him and his 2 children. The Ohlone-Costanoan Esselen people have dealt with identity stripping, since the majority of tribal nations residing in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban a ...

were forced out. Miranda attended

Wheelock College Wheelock College (Wheelock) was a private college in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1888 by Lucy Wheelock as Miss Wheelock's Kindergarten Training School, it offered undergraduate and graduate programs that focused on the Arts & Sciences, ...

with a focus on teaching moderate special needs children. After receiving her B.S., she earned her MA and Ph.D. in English from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...

. She went on to become Thomas H. Broadhus professor of English at

in Lexington, Virginia, where she taught creative writing, with a research interest in

Native American culture Native American cultures across the United States are notable for their wide variety and diversity of lifestyles, regalia, art forms and beliefs. The culture of indigenous North America is usually defined by the concept of the Pre-Columbian ...

. In her scholarship, Miranda explores the ways in which the American canon has repressed and subjugated Indigenous culture, while giving breath to other historically marginalized groups, such as the

Chicano Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States. The label ''Chicano'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Mexican American'', although the terms have different meanings. While Mexican-American ident ...

s and

Chicanas Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States. The label ''Chicano'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Mexican American'', although the terms have different meanings. While Mexican-American ident ...

, African Americans,

Japanese Americans are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...

, Chinese Americans, Appalachians, Southern Americans, and more. In 2012, Miranda received a Lenfest Sabbatical Grant for her project "The Hidden Stories of Isabel Meadows and Other California Indian Lacunae". In 2015, she won a

PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award The PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award is for U.S. multicultural writers, to "promote works of excellence by writers of all cultural and racial backgrounds and to educate both the public and the media as to the nature of multicultural work. ...

. Miranda maintains a blog and Twitter account known a
BAD NDNS
where she writes about her life, poetry, and essential histories. She is married to Margo Solod and has two children, Miranda and Danny. A lot of her poetry was motivated through her mixed-blood ancestry and focused on the natural world, gender, mothering, and the ability to power through living in a violent world.

Published Work

Books

One of Miranda's major works is '' Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir'' (2013), in which she discusses the multiple time-frames and decades that the Esselen Nation and

California Indians The indigenous peoples of California (known as Native Californians) are the indigenous inhabitants who have lived or currently live in the geographic area within the current boundaries of California before and after the arrival of Europeans. ...

have dealt with. Also included in this memoir are Miranda's encounters with her family endeavors and actual news clippings and testimonies to emphasize the hardships felt at this time. Through these archival texts and her own personal testimony Miranda provides a unique exploration of the legacies of Indigenous genocide in California. In 2017, Miranda was a co-editor of the

two-spirit Two-spirit (also two spirit, 2S or, occasionally, twospirited) is a modern, , umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people in their communities who fulfill a traditional third-gender (or other gender-variant) ...

literature collection Sovereign Erotics. She is considered one of many important two-spirit writers working to reclaim buried histories of third genders from colonial erasure. Other major books include: *''The Zen of La Llorona,'' Salt Publishing, 2005. *''Indian Cartography'', Greenfield Review Press, 1999, Cover Art by Kathleen Smith (Dry Creek Pomo/Bodega Miwok) *''Altar to Broken Things,'' BkMk Press 2020. *''Raised By Humans,'' Tia Chucha Press 2015.

Poetry and essays

Miranda's poetry is widely anthologized, and she also writes scholarly articles tackling such issues as racism, colonialism, misogyny, intergenerational trauma, childhood trauma, identity, environmental crises, the political climate, and linguistic barriers. Some examples include: *"Lunatic or Lover, Madman or Shaman: The Role of the Poet in Contemporary Culture(s)." Stealing Light: A Raven Chronicles Anthology. Raven Chronicle Press. 2018. *"Tuolumne" in World Literature Today. May 2017. *"What's Wrong with a Little Fantasy? Storytelling from the (still) Ivory Tower" in ''American Indian Quarterly'', vol. 27, no. 1&2. *"A String of Textbooks: Artifacts of Composition Pedagogy in Indian Boarding Schools." ''The Journal of Teaching Writing''. Vol. 16.2, Fall 2000. *"I Don't Speak the Language that has the Sentences: An Interview with Paula Gunn Allen" in ''Sojourner: The Women's Forum''. February 1999, Vol. 24, No. 2. *"A Strong Woman Pursuing Her God: Linda Hogan's Power" in ''Sojourner: The Women's Forum''. November 2000, Vol. 26, No. 3.

References

External links

Deborah Miranda page
at the

Poetry Foundation The Poetry Foundation is an American literary society that seeks to promote poetry and lyricism in the wider culture. It was formed from ''Poetry'' magazine, which it continues to publish, with a 2003 gift of $200 million from philanthropist Ru ...

Deborah A. Miranda's faculty page
at Washington and Lee University

* ttp://www.ipl.org/div/natam/bin/browse.pl/A523 A short biographyfrom the Internet Public Library's Native American Authors Project {{DEFAULTSORT:Miranda, Deborah Native American academics Native American women academics American women academics Native American women writers 1961 births University of Washington alumni Living people Pacific Lutheran University faculty LGBT Native Americans LGBT people from California Native American poets American women poets 20th-century American poets 21st-century American poets Washington and Lee University faculty Writers from Los Angeles American people of French descent American people of Jewish descent Chumash people Wheelock College alumni Poets from California Poets from Washington (state) 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers 20th-century Native American women 20th-century Native Americans 21st-century Native American women 21st-century Native Americans