Liz Miranda, elected four years ago as a state representative, returns to Beacon Hill this week to take the oath of office as state senator for the Second Suffolk District.

Her swearing-in ceremony is scheduled for Jan. 4 inside the State House. She plans a “Community Inauguration” at Roxbury Community College on Fri., Jan. 6, at 6:30 p.m.

Miranda grew up in what’s known as the Dudley Corridor, from Uphams Corner to the area around Ruggles MBTA Station. She graduated from the O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science, which is down the road from Roxbury Community College.

She will be the first Cape Verdean woman to serve in the state Senate. (Vinny deMacedo, a Plymouth Republican who left the state Senate in 2019 to work for Bridgewater State University, is the first man.)

Miranda will also be the fourth Black woman in the state Senate’s history. The others are former Sens. Dianne Wilkerson of Roxbury and Linda Dorcena Forry of Dorchester, and Sen. Lydia Edwards, who joined in 2022 and represents parts of Boston, as well as Revere and Winthrop.

Miranda is succeeding Sonia Chang-Diaz, the first Latina elected to the state Senate after she bested Wilkerson in 2008 in a Democratic primary. Miranda won the seat in the Democratic primary, which also featured fellow state Rep. Nika Elugardo, Rev. Miniard Culpepper, and Wilkerson on the ballot. She did not face a challenger in the November general election.

“I’m just so excited to come after [Sen. Chang-Diaz], but also to come after Sen. Dianne Wilkerson and the late Sen. Bill Owens,” Miranda said, referring to the first Black state senator who died in January 2022 at 84. “Both of those folks paved the way across the commonwealth and in this district to create the type of district that I was born and raised in.” The Second Suffolk District, anchored in Roxbury, also includes parts of Dorchester, Mattapan, Mission Hill, Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, and Hyde Park.

Miranda, 41, added: “Growing up in Roxbury, I never thought I’d be in public office, never mind a representative and now a senator, which is exciting and a great responsibility. “

Liz Miranda recently dined in Worcester with fellow incoming state senators. From left to right: Sens. Pavel Payano of Lawrence, Robyn Kennedy of Worcester, Jake Oliveira of Ludlow, and Miranda.
Image via Kennedy Twitter feed

A former youth worker and community organizer, she lost a younger brother, Michael, to gun violence in 2017. As a result, as a state representative she focused on policy issues such as police reform, offshore wind, maternal health, and ending solitary confinement. “We are the most policed, most incarcerated, and still-not-safe district in the whole state,” she said.

Entering the state Senate, she plans to focus on closing the racial wealth gap and the gender wage gap, with help from the flow of pandemic-era federal money. “We have to have a skill-trained and compensated workforce that is making what they deserve,” she said, listing off early education, pathways, and pipelines as early priorities.

The Second Suffolk has Roxbury Community College, Madison Park High School, and the Ben Franklin Institute of Technology, as well as two exam schools. “I look at my life and how education took me far,” said Miranda, who graduated from Wellesley College.

Public health is another priority. Communities of color were hit hard by the pandemic, in addition to gun violence, Miranda noted, adding that she hopes to canvass the district for ideas and policy proposals.

In the Second Suffolk district, “there is a robust community of elders, but there is a new generation of leaders and thought partners in moving our city forward,” she said. “We’ve inherited a great deal of brilliance but I as a young person and a daughter of this district want to see new faces and people who want to participate in making the commonwealth better.

She plans several forums, virtual and in-person. “I’m building this big tent and I want everyone to feel at home under that tent.”

Miranda spoke with the Reporter shortly after returning from a three-week trip to Cape Verde, or as it’s formally known, the Republic of Cabo Verde. An archipelago of islands several hundred miles off the west coast of Africa, the country has a population of about a half million people.
Her trip, which was a mixture of the personal and the political, was “totally life-changing,” she said. It was her “longest and most intense visit,” and the fifth she’s made as an adult. She met the republic’s top officials, and she visited the island of Fogo, which shares the Portuguese word for fire and is where her family goes back six generations.

Boston has more than 50,000 people with roots in Cape Verde, many of them living in the Second Suffolk. Brockton also has a large Cape Verdean population, numbering around 30,000, and many of them head back to the islands for the holidays. Miranda said that she ran into many constituents on the plane trips.

“I campaigned for 10 months. I had competitors who were strong. I hadn’t had a break,” Miranda said. “Going back home was the perfect balance of connecting to my roots but also taking the time to think forward. I’m really refreshed and ready.”