Caraway was born in Alabama and arrived in Hawaii from Houston, Texas. She received her bachelor of arts degree in political science at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in 1980. She was a resident of New York City while studying for her Master of Science degree in journalism at Columbia University. She married her husband, Neil Abercrombie, in 1981 in Palm Springs, California.[3] She returned to Hawaii and completed a master of arts in 1986 and doctorate in 1991, both in political science.
An author, Caraway won the Victoria Schuck Award—an international award for the best book on women and politics—from the American Political Science Association for her 1992 book, Segregated Sisterhood: Racism and the Politics of American Feminism,[5] also the title of her University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa at doctoraldissertation.