People like Karen E. Quinones Miller

Karen E. Quinones Miller (born June 20, 1958, New York, United States) is an African-American journalist, historian, and nationally best-selling author, and community activist. In particular she has studied the area known as Harlem.

Karen E. Quinones Miller was born in New York City to Marjorie Bayne Quinones and Jose Quinones. She has a twin sister, Kathleen, and a younger brother, Joseph. Her older brother, David Quinones, died in 2008.

Miller dropped out of junior high school at the age of 13, and says she spent most of her youth running the streets of Harlem. Although she was not officially home-schooled, her parents both insisted that she continue her education on her own, and gave her an extensive reading list. It was then that her interest in Harlem history was born, as she read novels and poetry by Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Nella Larsen, and Claude McKay. Tired of the fast life, she joined the U. S. Navy in 1980. After her enlistment was over in 1985, she married Kenneth W. Miller, whom she had met while still in service. Their daughter, Camille R. Quinones Miller, was born in April 1987, and they divorced in May of that same year.