Jayapal was born on September 21, 1965, into a Malayali Nair family in Chennai, India, to Maya Jayapal, a writer, and Jayapal Menon, a marketing professional. She spent most of her childhood in Indonesia and Singapore.[5][6] She can speak Hindi but does not speak Malayalam fluently.[7] Jayapal attended Jakarta Intercultural School.[8] She came to the U.S. in 1982, at age 16, to attend college.