How old is Gloria and Claire in Modern Family?

Gloria Maria Ramirez Delgado-Pritchett (neé Ramirez; formerly Delgado) is the feisty, fun-loving Colombian daughter of Pilar Ramirez and Fulgencio Ramirez, wife of Jay Pritchett, and the mother of Manny Delgado and Joe Pritchett. She becomes an American citizen in "Patriot Games". She was formerly a hairdresser, a taxi driver, a stay-at-home and a housewife, but is currently a realtor.

Biography

Before the show

Gloria was born in Colombia to Pilar and Fulgencio Ramirez. She has many siblings, including her younger sister Sonia and two unnamed brothers. Living in a poor village, she is evidently used to doing manual labor and frequently implies violence as a solution to problems. She states that she had her own machete when she was young ("Fizbo"), and has considerable comfort in murdering animals due to relatives who are butchers ("Unplugged"). Crazily traditional, Gloria firmly believes in superstitions and that her family is cursed because her great-great-grandfather made a deal with the devil, causing many of her relatives to end up in jail ("Larry's Wife"). Gloria also frequently mentions that she used to join (and win) beauty pageants where she showcased her ventriloquist dummy Uncle Grumpy, later seen to be strikingly similar to Jay ("Yard Sale"). Gloria was also very jealous of Sonia, who their father got on better with, and it appears that Gloria resented Sonia for this (“A Tale of Three Cities”).

When she was younger, she received a letter addressed to her sister Sonia with an opportunity to leave for the US. She used the letter and ends up leaving instead of her sister. This would later cause friction between the two ("Fulgencio"). Jay mentions that she had been deported twice ("Open House of Horrors").

She also stayed in Texas and Florida for some time, both of which she became wanted by the police. Until the events in "Goodnight Gracie", she was wanted in Florida for subletting an apartment which her roommate turned into a brothel after she left. It is also in Florida where she gave birth to Manny in 1999.

She used to be a cab driver and a hairdresser at a salon near her apartment in the slums. Jay said he used to sweat a lot while visiting her apartment, having to climb three flights of stairs. ("Two Monkeys and a Panda")

Gloria met her husband Jay at a diner while she was with Sonia. Jay (who could only see Sonia as Gloria's back is turned to him) sent a pie over to Sonia but she missed it as she went to the bathroom. Gloria later comes over to thank Jay thinking it was for her ("Fulgencio").

Personality

Gloria is often characterized by her loud, outspoken attitude noticeable even from a distance that one neighbor once thought they own a parrot ("Unplugged"); her voice is known for driving the next-door neighbor's dog mad, setting off car alarms and scaring several drivers into pulling over because it reached a pitch akin to a police or ambulance siren. She is shown to be very expressive in her speech; often imitating the sounds of things when she does not know what to call it, and shouting loudly when she is upset. Due to her fiery nature, she often clashes with Claire, another strong female. She often feels that her race is a problem with people, such as failing to hail a cab which she immediately blames on her being a Latina only for Haley to point out that its just a yellow car. She also has a considerable temper which is comparable to a volcano: sudden, destructive and with many casualties. When two teens egged her house on Halloween, she charged after them screaming "You put egg on my house, I kill what you love!". When angered or frustrated, she has a tendency to rant vociferously in Spanish.

She is shown to enjoy the limelight, as she makes effort to be noticeable especially when it comes to her appearance and tends to get jealous when other women get more attention than her, as seen when she fires attractive female babysitters from her house so they don't outrank her ("The Help"). Gloria also states that all friends of Jay have hit on her, except Shorty ("Fifteen Percent"). She frequently uses her good looks and sexy features to her advantage, which is why she becomes frustrated when she tries to help Claire's campaign for office using the telephone, as people do not see her and respond as she wants ("Election Day").

She is shown to be very proud of her Colombian roots and insists on carrying on several of her Colombian traditions with her new family, and encourages Manny to learn more Spanish ("Queer Eyes, Full Hearts"). A devout Catholic, Gloria is shown to value strong family ties and religion above all else. Jay says that Gloria likes to celebrate even little events he would consider insignificant ("Two Monkeys and a Panda"). She has a disturbingly high comfort level when it comes to killing or violence, especially where animals are concerned; she brutally beheaded a rat with a shovel and left its head to "send a message to the other rats", and then set off for church ("Unplugged").

Season Summaries

Season 1

Occupations

Hairdresser

Formerly

It's implied that Gloria liked working as at the hair salon as she states that she really misses her former co-workers when she visits the salon with Phil. In one instance, she used her skills to give Phil a haircut at his home.

Mover

Formerly

Gloria has mentioned that she used to be a mover.

Philosophy Professor

Formerly

Gloria has mentioned to Mitchell that she used to be a Philosophy Professor.

Taxi Driver

Formerly

Gloria used to drive a taxi at night, often with Manny sleeping in the seat beside her. One time she had to hit the breaks so hard that Manny fell down on to the floor and found a penny.

Stay-at-Home Mom/Housewife

Formerly

She looks after the house and her kids; Manny and Joe.

Real estate agent intern

Formerly

She used to work as an intern for Phil Dunphy before eventually partnering up with him.

Realtor

Currently

She has a realtor partnership with Phil Dunphy.

Relationships

Family

Claire

Claire is Gloria's step-daughter. Gloria started with a strained relationship with Claire. Which got gradually better, after the fight in "Coal Digger", They now completely trust each other although Claire can sometimes get jealous of her, in the late Season 3 and the early Season 4 it is shown in "Bringing Up Baby", that Claire is jealous of her figure, as when she and Jay find out that Gloria is pregnant with Joe, she is the first to say "She's gonna get fat", and when she is pregnant, in her late trimesters, Claire is the first to ask Jay how much weight she has gained, and then starts to state numbers that seem to be too much weight. She also gets to like Claire more when they go to the shooting gallery together.

Claire started with a strained relationship with Gloria which is fully first shown when Luke gets into a fight with Manny. Gloria opens up that from the start she never felt welcomed by Claire into the family and Luke unknowingly states that Claire thinks Gloria is a "coal digger" (mishearing "gold-digger"). Gloria later states that she won't forgive Claire, about the new information she hears, until she jumps in the backyard swimming pool fully-clothed to prove she is sorry. At first Claire says "no" but, then begins to go through with it, as she is standing beside the pool, she asks her stepmother whether she really wants her to do it and moans when she realises that Gloria actually wants her to jump in. Claire wants forgiveness and jumps in fully clothed. Everyone including Claire laughs and everyone else jumps in, in groups, accept for Haley. ("Coal Digger")

Claire is shown to have a tendency to feel jealous and insecure towards Gloria. When they serve as co-presidents at a dance at Luke's and Manny's school, Claire says Gloria is stealing her only "thing" by always being the center of attention. ("Dance Dance Revelation")

It is revealed that Claire and Mitchell still occasionally laugh behind Gloria's back at her mispronunciations. Claire is annoyed that the two are actually becoming closer. Gloria states that she indeed likes Mitchell more, but is also willing get closer to Claire if given the chance. ("After the Fire")

It is shown that Claire is jealous of her figure, as when she and Jay find out that Gloria is pregnant with Joe, she is the first to say "She's gonna get fat", and when she is pregnant, in her late trimesters, Claire is the first to ask Jay how much weight she has gained, and then starts to state numbers that seem to be too much weight. ("Bringing Up Baby"). Immediately after Gloria gives birth to Joe, Claire lifts up Gloria's blanket to presumably look at her stomach, and remarked in a rather annoyed and disappointed tone that "she was already skinny again."

Manny

Manny is Gloria's son with Javier. Gloria is shown to have a strong and loving relationship with Manny (much to Jay's dismay), being that she raised him on her own. She is very supportive of Manny's interests and always encourages him to show affection to girls he likes and treat them with chivalry. As a mother, she is shown to stand up to anyone who insults or hurts Manny and is concerned if people are gonna make fun of him. In some episodes, Manny expresses his uneasiness in her mother's affections and calling him cutesy names in public.

It is shown that Gloria has always wanted a daughter, and at the end of the episode, she reveals that she used to dress Manny up as a girl when he was young and told him it was his baby sister who died when he saw the pictures. ("Come Fly with Me")

She tends to get jealous when a girl grows too close to Manny which she claims comes from her Colombian roots, this shows when we see that Manny wants to bring over a girl to study. When Gloria sees Manny and Kelly, the study partner. She gets very jealous stating that "In my culture, mothers are very clingy to their sons. In fact, the leading cause of death among Colombian women is when their sons get married. But I'm not like that. I just want Manny to be happy." But then also says that "I AM a Colombian mother! I'm not going to let him make a mistake that's going to affect him for the rest of my life! HIS life!" when she sees that Kelly is starting to change Manny. ("The Old Wagon") Although Gloria and Manny seem to love everything about each other, she shares to Claire that she does not particularly like his poetry and him being persnickety (pernickety). Manny accidently hears her saying this, and becomes angry. Gloria runs after him and apologizes to him, saying she can't get enough of his poetry and only said that she doesn't like it because Claire told her that she wanted to hit her children sometimes and Gloria wanted to show some sympathy. ("Mother's Day")

She also shares her disappointment when she thinks Manny is growing up too honest unlike her but is later relieved when she finds out that Manny had lied to her to avoid being punished. ("Games People Play")

Jay

Jay is Gloria's husband. Gloria loves him although the two can occasionally bicker over the life of her son, Manny, and Gloria's insistence on staying with her Colombian culture. Nonetheless, like Phil and Claire, they always work it out at the end.

It is stated that they had their first kiss at the pier. ("Two Monkeys and a Panda") Jay states that he fell in love with Gloria's voice even before seeing her face. Manny states that Gloria fell in love with Jay on their first fight, she then says that she finally met her match. ("Halloween")

Phil

Phil is Gloria's step son-in-law. He has a crush on Gloria, which became a running gag throughout the each series due to Phil's clumsy nature. Claire does not seem to be seriously bothered by this and Jay says nothing of it because Phil knows not to cross the line, saying he would never stray away from Claire. He takes any and all chances to hug or touch her, except once when he realizes that Claire is the most important thing that ever happened to him. ("The One That Got Away")

Haley Marshall

Haley is Gloria's Step-Granddaughter. They both have interest of shopping and fashion and makeup.

Alex Dunphy

Alex is Gloria's stepgranddaughter.

Luke Dunphy

Luke is Gloria's Stepgrandson.

Joe Pritchett

Joe is Gloria's second son. At first, Gloria was nervous about telling Jay that she was pregnant, even claiming she would be willing to raise him on her own should Jay back out.

Lily Tucker-Pritchett

Lily is Gloria's step-granddaughter. Due to Gloria's fixation on having a daughter, she spends a lot of time with Lily, especially when she was a baby. She often called Lily "the Little Princess," as a form of endearment. She was excited to a fairly disturbing degree that she and Jay were made Lily's guardians, saying she was "going to be all hers."

Cam

Cam is Gloria's step son-in-law. Gloria is shown to have a very friendly relationship with Cam as a so called "girlfriend". When Cam and Mitchell's house is being fumigated, Gloria and Cam are shown screaming with delight over 72 hours with each other. Cam and Gloria have many chats and are shown to have quite a few things in common.

Cam keeps Gloria out of her house all day because he has secretly invited his friend, Abelard, over to paint a present for her baby, which is of Jay, Gloria and Manny as angels on a cloud. Gloria is not happy with Cam for doing this, because she says he tries to control everything, but when she sees the painting and realizes that that was why Cam kept her outside all day; so that Cam's friend "Averar" could come and paint a present, she is so happy that she admits to him she loves it, she states that "it's like him full of colour, life and love" and then hugs him tightly. ("Mistery Date")

Biological Family

Coming from a traditional Colombian family, Gloria is extremely close to her biological family, some of which have appeared throughout the series. Gloria states that she has 29 cousins and she remembers all their names ("The Musical Man"), including Armando (who appears in "American Skyper"), Rosa Marina, Gloria Maria, Veronica Maria and Jose Vicente.

29 Cousins

Gloria says she has 29 cousins although we don't see all of them, of course, we see at least 5 of them, but the five that we do see don't have that much of a relationship with her. They are Armando, Rosa Marina, Veronica Maria, Jose Vicente and Marisol.

• Armando: He first appears in "American Skyper".
• Rosa Marina:We don't get to see much of her, or her relationship with Gloria, Gloria only mentions her.
• Veronica Maria: We don't get to see much of her, or her relationship with Gloria, Gloria only mentions her.
• Jose Vicente: We don't get to see much of him, or his relationship with Gloria. Gloria only mentions him.

Pilar

Pilar is Gloria's mother who seems to have considerable influence over Gloria. She seemingly wants things done her way like naming her grandson Fulgencio Umberto after her late husband and late father without considering American names.

Pilar reveals that she really doesn't like Gloria's husband. ("Fulgencio")

Pilar treats Claire like a daughter more than Gloria, which reignites the competition between Claire & Gloria. ("The Old Man & the Tree")

Sonia

Sonia is Gloria's sister. When Sonia is first introduced, Gloria seems apologetic and generous to her. She later reveals that this is because she still feels guilty because she used a letter addressed to Sonia as her opportunity to get out of their life in the village. Jay reveals that when he met the sisters at a diner, he originally liked Sonia because Gloria's back was turned to him, but fell for Gloria after she came up to him. After finding this out, Sonia states that Gloria stole her life and demanded support from her sister, and Jay and Gloria ended up having to buy Sonia an expensive house to make it up for her. ("Fulgencio")

Sonia and Gloria are closer than ever and have resolved their fighting. Sonia, however tries to make a move on Jay, Jay tells Gloria this, but she doesn't believe him, although secretly she is on Sonia's case without anyone else knowing. When Gloria finds out information about it, from the babyphone she hid in the bedroom, and they resumed fighting. ("Valentine's Day 4: Twisted Sister")

Two Unnamed Brothers

Along with Sonia, Gloria also has two unnamed brothers.

Gloria has to cover for herself and tell Claire that she was trying to sending a letter to one of them in Colombia, when she is actually trying to delete an accidental message to Claire from her laptop, as she realises that deleting from Claires' laptop is the only way Claire won't see that message as she was only trying to vent out her anger for Claire. ("Caught in the Act")

Gloria tries to settle an argument between Jay and his biggest business rival, and while settling it she says that she's gonna have to handle it how her mother handled her brothers; in other words, stab two knives into the table and leave them to either work it out or kill each other. ("Won't You Be Our Neighbor")

Fulgencio

Fulgencio was Gloria's father. While he was still young, he was quite a handsome man. He died at an unknown period before Season 4, most likely before the show began. As Jay is much older than Gloria, people mistake him to be her father.

Gloria says she remembers her father holding her hand when they danced together on what seems to have been her 15th birthday and there wasn't a dry eye in the cartel. ("Strangers on a Treadmill")

Ana-Maria Morales

Ana-Maria (Full name: Ana-Maria Rosa de la Immaculada Jimenez Morales) is Gloria's grandmother. It is unknown which parental side she's on. Gloria made chunchullo in memory of her. ("The Kiss")

Umberto

Umberto was Gloria's maternal grandfather. Pilar says she wants her newborn grandson Joe to have Umberto's name as his middle name. ("Fulgencio")

Armando

Armando is Gloria's cousin, who does not speak English.

He is first introduced when he stays with the Pritchetts. Jay complains that he thinks Armando is stealing his cigars, Gloria puts this idea to rest but then she later discovers that Armando has been stealing Jay's cigars from their house, so she forced him to leave without telling Jay. Gloria intentionally incorrectly translates Armando's Spanish to Jay's English as she tries to get Armando to leave the house, without admitting anything to Jay. ("American Skyper")

Carlos

Carlos is Gloria's uncle, who she mentioned fixed soccer games. It is unknown which parental side he's on. ("Larry's Wife")

Others

DeDe Pritchett

In "The Incident", DeDe comes to visit to apologize about what she did at Gloria and Jays wedding. DeDe came to the weddinbb to show people she was okay with it. She said rude things to Gloria, Jay, Mitchell and Claire. She started drinking cocktails called "Horny Columbians" which made her get out of control.

Dede makes a toast to Gloria and Jay

After she started making fun of Mitchell and Claire by telling Mitchell "would you take a Claire pill." She started trying to act like Gloria (in an offensive way by saying things in Gloria's accent in a phony style.)

DeDe wanted to apologize to everyone because she met a man named Chaz and is moving to Canada. At the Dunphy's place, Dede apologized for "The Incident". Gloria forgave her, but DeDe wanted to "rip off her head".

One of the times that DeDe tried to strangle her, Gloria saw her favourite abuela (grandmother) for a split second. (“Good Grief") which she in some way is thankful for.

Dede telling Mitchell "would you take a Claire pill."

Trivia

• She along with Jay, Phil, Claire, Mitch, and Cam are the only characters who have appeared in every episode.
• She is 14 months younger than Claire ("After the Fire").
• Gloria has excellent aim in using guns, as demonstrated when she shoots the lid Jay was holding in "Manny Get Your Gun" (as well as claiming that she could have undone Manny's shirt buttons with it if she wanted to), at the shooting range in "Virgin Territory", and when she shoots the drone to pieces in "Closet? You'll Love It!".
  • She seems to share this habit with her Colombian family as it was shown that they have a gun as an heirloom ("Fulgencio").
• She hates Jay's furniture and would change it if he died.
• Gloria reveals that she only walks Stella so she can smoke her cigars in peace ("iSpy").
• Gloria is shown to be extremely good at chess ("Game Changer").
• She is not a good singer.
• Because of her accent she often mispronounces everything she says.
• She has a penchant for luxury cars, as she states she has been in love with the classic Rolls Corniche all her life ("New Year's Eve"), though it is implied that she is a terrible driver ("Moon Landing", "Express Christmas").
• She is afraid of spiders ("Express Christmas").
• She has had sex with 8 people. ("Come Fly with Me")
• Gloria knows a few phrases in russian. ("Snow Ball")
• She hates when men call her baby. ("ISpy")
• One of her old hobbies is "confronting the devil in all his forms" meaning exorcism. ("No Small Feet"
• She used to be a competitive swimmer. (“He Said, She Shed”)
• One of the times that DeDe tried to strangle her, Gloria saw her favourite abuela (grandmother) for a split second. Which she in some way is thankful for. (“Good Grief")
• She believes a number of people are haunting her, including DeDe Pritchett. Other people that she believes are haunting her are: Rosa Garcia, Marta Blanco, Marisol Gutierrez and Cecilia Matos. (“Good Grief")

Quotes

Season 1

— From "Family Portrait"

— From "Family Portrait"

— From "Game Changer"

— From "Hawaii"

— From "Airport 2010"

Season 2

— From "See You Next Fall"

— From "Slow Down Your Neighbors"

— From "Regrets Only"

— From "My Funky Valentine"

— From "Fifteen Percent"

— From "Fifteen Percent"

Season 3

— From "Little Bo Bleep"

— From "Little Bo Bleep"

— From "Aunt Mommy"

— From "Aunt Mommy"

Season 6

— From "Grill, Interrupted"

Season 9

— From "Grill, Interrupted"

Appearances

Please go to here for color coding.

Gallery

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