Cara Romero was born in Inglewood, California and was raised on the Chemehuevi Valley Indian reservation. Her father is Chemehuevi, and her mother is German-Irish. She went to the University of Houston and majored in Cultural Anthropology, and later studied photography at the Institute of American Indian Arts and Oklahoma State University. She was the first Executive Director of the Chemehuevi Cultural Centre. Early in her photography career, she experimented with Photoshop to combine her photos and use more color photography.