Guy Garcia

Early life and education

Garcia was born in Los Angeles, California. He received a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley in Political Science, where he graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors. Garcia later received a master's degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Journalism

As a staff writer at Time magazine for 13 years, Garcia covered business, culture, and international news, as well as star profiles, music, cinema, show business, and reviews. Prior to Time, Garcia was the Executive Editor of Town and Village Weekly (1979–1980), and Editor of FRIDAY Magazine (1977-1979), the arts and politics weekly for the Daily Californian at the University of California, Berkeley.

Garcia has contributed to The New York Times, American Film, The Face, Mas, the Minneapolis Tribune, the LA Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle, and was featured in Fortune, Vanity Fair, Playboy, Sports Illustrated, Men’s Journal, Rolling Stone, People, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Spin, Marie Claire, Interview, Premiere Magazine, People en Español, Advertising Age, The Financial Times, the Times of London, ABC, Univision, NPR, CNBC, CNN, PBS, and the Cable Advertising Bureau.

Skin Deep (1989)

Garcia’s debut novel, Skin Deep, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, is a coming of age story about a second-generation Chicano growing up in an America where races and cultures collide.

Obsidian Sky (1995)

In 1995, Simon & Schuster published Garcia’s second novel, Obsidian Sky, a story of Chicano graduate student Brian Mendoza discovering Mexico City while researching the sixteenth-century shaman Xotl. Though it received mixed reviews, Publishers Weekly described Garcia’s second novel as one written with conviction and the Library Journal suggested that Garcia “brings to life the Mexican settings, be they Yucatán, Mérida, or Mexico City.”

Spirit of the Maya (1997)

With Walker & Company, Garcia’s third novel, Spirit of the Maya was published and follows a Mayan boy who discovers his ancestors created the pyramids and temples of Palenque, Mexico.

Swarm (2017)

Morphic Books published Garcia’s sixth book, Swarm, a cyber-noir thriller that infuses political intrigue with cutting-edge concepts of bio-emergence, neuro-technology and the dark side of social media, in February 2017. Swarm follows Austin, Texas based hacktivist Tom Anaya, who after receiving ultra-sensitive experimental software from the U.S. Department of Defense uses his cyber-hacking skills to trigger the next phase of human evolution.. Anaya’s ultimate goal is to become the controller of the ‘hive mind,’ but his way of doing so could have potentially deadly effects.

Kirkus Reviews called Garcia’s “careening prose” and coverage of “cutting-edge topics” in Swarm “intellectually and politically supercharged...a white-hot ingot of daring, disciplined storytelling."

In January 2017, Swarm premiered as a VR Experience at the Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontiers VR Bar. Garcia also participated in the NALIP Media Summit panel “The Reality About Virtual Reality” in Los Angeles on June 24, 2016.

The book’s publication was accompanied by the Swarm Manifesto, a video in which the mysterious Swarm Avatar presciently echoes current affairs when he addresses readers directly to say, “We take our pulse in the daily news and our temperature keeps rising. Let’s raise our hands and light the fuse for what comes next…the revolution will be alive. Thinking with a billion brains. Moving with a billion feet. Stepping together into the New Now.”

In February 2017, The Swarm VR Experience, a virtual reality video based on the title character of Swarm, was released at www.ownyourmind.org and YouTube. The website gives context to the book by inviting readers to learn about the history of mind control from late 1800s-early 1900s, watch the Swarm Avatar in a viral video, and listen to Electronic Dance Music (EDM) soundtracks by Berlin-based DJs featuring voiceovers from the title character. A Books World article on Garcia and Swarm declared that the novel “will grip readers with is fast-paced look into what could happen if a cyber-criminal gained possession of dangerous military technology, while intertwining current issues in today's society.”

Anthologies

Garcia contributed to the fiction anthologies Iguana Dreams: New Latino Fiction, published by HarperCollins (1992), Pieces of the Heart: New Chicano Fiction, published by Chronicle Books (1993), and Paper Dance: 55 Latino Poets, published by Persea Books (1995).

The New Mainstream (2004)

In The New Mainstream: How the Multicultural Consumer is Transforming American Business, published by Harper Collins, Garcia drew from experience as a journalist and author to write a “business case for diversity.” The New Mainstream drew national attention to emerging demographic, economic and marketing trends in the increasingly multi-ethnic American population. Soundview Executive Book Summaries awarded Garcia with the “Best of 2004” Business Book Award.

The Decline of Men (2009)

In 2009, Garcia published The Decline of Men: How the American Male Is Tuning Out, Giving Up, and Flipping Off His Future (Harper Collins), an analysis of economic, cultural and social malaise afflicting American males. He explored themes of superficial masculinity, self-destructive behaviors and virtual escapism, as well as social isolation and disconnection.

The Decline of Men was published at the height of a larger cultural and media movement. That same year, NPR declared "The End of Macho," noting that 80 percent of jobs that disappeared in the economic downturn belonged to men. An Atlantic article published in July/August 2010 declared "The End of Men," noting women’s rapidly increasing numbers in the workforce for the first time in U.S. history. Newsweek published another article supporting Garcia’s argument with its September 20, 2010 article “Why We Need to Re-imagine Masculinity." Publishers Weekly recognized The Decline of Men as “an astute and well-researched meditation on how men might reclaim their identity and place in modern America and why such a transformation is important to future generations of both men and women.”

Self Made (2016)

Garcia co-authored the New York Times best selling book Self Made: Becoming Empowered, Self-Reliant & Rich in Every Way with Emmy-winning producer Nely Galan in April 2016; the book featured a forward by author, financial advisor and television host Suze Orman. Tory Johnson, “Deals & Steals” contributor on ABC’s Good Morning America and author of NYT bestseller The Shift said, “Self Made teaches women to unleash their spark and hustle.” Sandra Cisneros, author of American novellas such as The House on Mango Street, called Self Made “a much-needed and wise book that teaches women not to fear money but to see it as a means of reaching our dreams.”

TotalNewYork.com and AOL International

Garcia co-founded Total New York, a Silicon Alley start-up and one of the first urban web sites in the 90’s, where he managed the development of interactive content and virtual environments. He later became the Founding Editor of AOL Digital City, New York.

From 1998-1999, Garcia was Director of Creative & Editorial Development for AOL Interactive Properties, managing programming for ICQ, a web-based instant messaging system with more than 60 million users worldwide. In 1999, Garcia became the Vice President of Content and Programming for AOL Latin America, a joint venture between America Online and the Cisneros Group of Venezuela. While at AOLLA he launched AOL Latino, the bilingual entity of AOL International, encompassing all 2 million of its Hispanic subscribers, and oversaw the development of AOL International, managing content and programming for AOL inititaives in Latin America, Brazil, Spain, Australia, Japan and China. In 2003, Garcia transitioned AOL Music to the AOL Broadband Product and Programming group.

Consulting

In 2009, Garcia became chief consultant to the Warner Bros. Hispanic Marketing Project, The Time Warner Research Council Multicultural Consumer Study, and the PBS/BBC co-production Latin Music USA, a four-hour documentary on Latin Music and Culture. As a PBS “Trend Tracker,” Guy worked with the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau, NBCUniversal, AARP, Time Warner Cable, The Walt Disney Company, Pepsi, Astra Zeneca, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, McKinsey & Co., Nissan Motors, Fox Entertainment, MTV Networks, Harvard University and The Council on Foreign Relations.

Garcia is currently a speaker and consultant for corporations including Nielsen, Telemundo/NBC Universal, Time Warner, Reebok, The National Ski Areas Association, Kraft Foods, The Coca-Cola Company, Nissan Motors, McKinsey & Co. and the Council on Foreign Relations. Additional clients include Warner Bros., Time Inc., Twentieth Century Fox, CNN, PBS, Turner Broadcasting, AOL, Nissan, Clorox, Hospital Corporation of America, McKinsey & Co., the National Hispanic Corporate Council, the Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership, the Association of International Educators, and the National Association of Hispanic Advertisers.

Mentametrix

Garcia became the founder, president and CEO of Mentametrix, Inc. in 2004, where he focused on the concepts and insights of The New Mainstream, and collaborated on consumer marketing projects with Harvard University and the creators of the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Mentametrix became a research, marketing and consulting company that combined multicultural consumer insight and online research technologies to produce research and reports that later informed his books.

Ethnifacts

In 2012 Garcia became a partner and President of New Mainstream Initiatives at Ethnifacts, a research and insights consultancy studying evolving cultural identities, and how multicultural groups unite with new technology and social media to influence U.S. consumer markets. EthniFacts produces research on consumer purchasing power and influence on American culture and commerce, and the effect of diverse groups on contemporary life in the U.S.

Using Ethnifact’s Interethnic Proximity Index, Garcia spoke at a press conference in Times Square on August 2014 to announce and updated tipping for a multicultural majority, which he identified as August 22, 2014. The new date for a multicultural majority U.S. was calculated by the EthniFacts Interethnic Proximity, Index (IPI), a proprietary algorithm that takes into account multiracial populations, intermarried couples, cohabiting households, residence proximity and other factors indicating multicultural influence on non-Hispanics whites and American society.

Other works

Garcia has commented on society and politics for the Huffington Post and the National Journal. He is a contributing producer to NPR’s Latino USA and PBS’s America By the Numbers with Maria Hinojosa, and has appeared on NPR’s Brian Lehrer Show.

Honors and awards

Garcia is a 3 time Judge for the National Magazine Awards and is a recipient of the Pluma de Plata Award (Mexico). In 2005, his book The New Mainstream was selected among Soundview Executive Book Summaries Top 30 Business Books of 2005. Garcia is a former fellow for the Edward Albee Foundation and a member of PEN American Center.

Personal life

In 2010, Garcia married Lisa Garcia Quiroz.

Career timeline