Dr. Gloria Miranda

Biography: Gloria Miranda, Ph.D.

Dean of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Professor of History – El Camino College

Dr. Miranda was born and raised in Willowbrook, California in a barrio known as El Jardin. Her father was a Mexican bracero who came to the United States during World War II. Her mother was a barrio-raised Chicana and the only one of 11 children who completed high school. Dr. Miranda attended public schools in the Willowbrook and Compton area before completing her A.A. degree at Compton College in 1970. Two years later she earned her Bachelor’s Degree from California State University, Dominguez Hills where she double majored in History and Chicano Studies. A Ford Foundation Fellowship for Mexican Americans made it possible to enter a Ph.D. program at USC.

Dr. Miranda was the Dean of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Professor of History at El Camino College, a position she has held since 1993. Dr. Miranda previously taught Chicano Studies and Humanities courses at Los Angeles Valley College from 1974 to 1993 where she served as department chair during her full-time faculty tenure there. She also has lectured at several other Los Angeles area community colleges and state universities before moving to El Camino College in 1993.

In addition to her divisional responsibilities, Dr. Miranda oversaw El Camino College’s Study Abroad and Teacher Education programs and several major grant projects. She has spearheaded efforts to internationalize the curriculum on campus which has resulted in administrative oversight and participation on several successful international education grant funded programs.

Professor Miranda earned a Ph.D. in history in 1978 from the University of Southern California. Her research emphasis is the history of California and the American Southwest and completed a doctoral dissertation that became a pioneering work on the topic of family life in Spanish and Mexican California. Professor Miranda has published a number of essays on early California social life and Mexican Immigrant Family Life in Los Angeles as well as essays on the Chicano and Mexican American experience in the United States.

Dr. Miranda has had a wide variety of professional and civic service experience during her academic career. She was elected as the first community college historian to serve on the Executive Board of the Organization of American Historians (2000-2003) after having served as the chairperson of the Advisory Board for OAH’s Magazine of History. She also chaired the American Historical Association’s Nancy Lyman Roelker Mentor teaching award selection committee and was the first community college member of the AHA’s Committee on Minority Historians. Dr. Miranda’s professional service also includes a past position on the Board of Trustees of the California Historical Society and service as a historical consultant on KCET’s Los Angeles History Project and the restoration of El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Park Sepulveda House to name a few of her activities. Dr. Miranda also served on the Board of Directors of the Historical Society of Southern California.

Dr. Miranda was the recipient of a number of awards and was recognized by KCET (Los Angeles’s local PBS station) in 1996 as a Hispanic Heritage Month California Mexican American educational success story. She also received the distinguished alumni academic service award from California State University, Dominguez Hills and is listed in several “Who’s Who.”

Dr. Miranda became the first Chicana Ph.D. to graduate from the University of Southern California in the field of history. She is the third brown Ph.D. female historian in the United States.

Dr. Miranda was the first Chicana community college historian to be elected to the Organization of American Historians professional executive board. She also was the first Chicana community college historian to join the American Historical Association’s Committee on Minority Historians.

As the first and only Chicana chairperson of Los Angeles Valley College’s Chicano Studies Department, she taught a wide array of Chicano courses during her career while serving as faculty advisor to M.ECh.A. from 1976 to 1993.