Gloria Arellanes was born in East Los Angeles in 1941 and raised in El Monte, California. She is the daughter of a Mexican American father and a Tongva mother. In the1960s she became involved in student activism in her high school and later joined the Brown Beret organization's founding chapter in East Los Angeles. She is known for her role as one of the only female leaders within the Brown Beret group, rising to the ranks to Minister of Finance and Correspondence. As Minister of Finance and Correspondence, she wrote press releases, letters, and edited La Causa, the East Los Angeles based Brown Beret Newspaper.
She also served as administrator of El Barrio Free Clinic and was a member of the National Chicano Moratorium Committee. In the 1970s she formed the group, Las Adelitas de Aztlán and soon after left the Movement. As an adult she discovered her Tongva heritage and to this date plays an important leadership role within the Native community of Southern California.