 His father, Robert Cancel Rodríguez, was president of the Mayagüez chapter of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and his mother was a member of the Daughters of Freedom, a non-partisan women's organization which was the women's branch of the Nationalist Party.His father, a businessman and owner of a furniture store, had been imprisoned because of his political beliefs.In March 1937, when Cancel Miranda was seven years old, his mother and father traveled to the City of Ponce to participate in a march organized by the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party.