Born in Watsonville and raised in Mexico and the San Joaquin Valley with her farmworker parents, Mireya moved to the Pajaro Valley to stay at the age of 13 and has since been deeply engaged in social justice and community building work. She has three sisters, five nieces/nephews, one daughter and one son. She loves to garden, write, camp and play with arts and crafts. Her first memory of art is from when she was in elementary school and her teacher took the class outside to the playground to sit around a tree. She and her classmates were instructed to draw the same tree. The memory of her first work of art remained in her mind and she has never stopped combining art with nature; now she enjoys making art with her two children.