Miguel Arteta was born in 1965 in San Juan, Puerto Rico to a Peruvian father, who worked as a Chrysler automotive parts dealer, and a Spanish mother. Throughout Arteta's childhood, the family would relocate habitually throughout Latin America, with Arteta's tenure in the region ending after expulsion from a Costa Rican high school. Following his dismissal from the institution, Arteta moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where he resided with his sister and finished out his high school studies at the Cambridge School of Weston.