Miranda was born Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha in Varzea da Ovelha e Aliviada, a village in the northern Portuguese municipality of Marco de Canaveses. She was the second daughter of Jose Maria Pinto da Cunha (17 February 1887 - 21 June 1938) and Maria Emilia Miranda (10 March 1886, Rio de Janeiro - 9 November 1971). In 1909, when Miranda was ten months old, her father emigrated to Brazil and settled in Rio de Janeiro, where he opened a barber shop.

Although Miranda's U.S. popularity continued to increase, she began to lose favor with some Brazilians. On 10 July 1940, she returned to Brazil and was welcomed by cheering fans. Soon after her arrival, however, the Brazilian press began criticizing Miranda for accommodating American commercialism and projecting a negative image of Brazil. Members of the upper class felt that her image was "too black", and she was criticized in a Brazilian newspaper for "singing bad-taste black sambas". Other Brazilians criticized Miranda for playing a stereotypical "Latina bimbo" in her first interview after her arrival in the U.S. In the New York World-Telegram interview, she played up her then-limited knowledge of English language: "I say money, money, money. I say twenty words in English. I say money, money, money and I say hot dog!"  On 15 July, Miranda appeared in a charity concert organized by Brazilian First Lady Darci Vargas and attended by members of Brazil's high society. She greeted the audience in English, and was met with silence. When Miranda began singing "The South American Way", a song from one of her club acts, the audience began to boo her. Although she tried to finish her act, she gave up and left the stage when the audience continued to boo. The incident deeply hurt Miranda, who wept in her dressing room. The following day, the Brazilian press criticized her as "too Americanized".  Weeks later, Miranda responded to the criticism with the Portuguese song "Disseram que Voltei Americanizada" ("They Say I've Come Back Americanized"). Another song, "Bananas Is My Business", was based on a line from one of her films and directly addressed her image. Upset by the criticism, Miranda did not return to Brazil for fourteen years.  Her films were scrutinized by Latin American audiences for characterizing Central and South America in a culturally-homogenous way. When Miranda's films reached Central and South American theaters, they were perceived as depicting Latin American cultures through the lens of American preconceptions. Some Latin Americans felt that their cultures were misrepresented, and felt that someone from their own region was misrepresenting them. Down Argentine Way was criticized, with Argentines saying that it failed to depict Argentine culture. Its lyrics were allegedly replete with non-Argentine themes, and its sets were a fusion of Mexican, Cuban, and Brazilian culture. The film was later banned in Argentina for "wrongfully portraying life in Buenos Aires". Similar sentiments were voiced in Cuba after the debut of Miranda's Weekend in Havana (1941), with Cuban audiences offended by Miranda's portrayal of a Cuban woman. Reviewers noted that an import from Rio could not accurately portray a woman from Havana, and Miranda did not "dance anything Cuban". Her performances were arguably hybrids of Brazilian and other Latin cultures. Critics said that Miranda's other films misrepresented Latin locales, assuming that Brazilian culture was a representation of Latin America.

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