Guy Garcia

Guy Garcia (born in Los Angeles, California) is a journalist,^[1] novelist, and multimedia entrepreneur who specializes in multicultural consumerism and socio-economic trends. He is the author of The New Mainstream and The Decline of Men, and his work has been featured in Time, the New York Times, LA Times, and Fortune. Garcia is a consultant and president of Ethnifacts. Recognized for his studies of multicultural markets and mega-trends, he has appeared on NPR, ABC World News Tonight, CNBC, PBS, and New York One.

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.

Career

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 (1979–1989), and Editor of FRIDAY Magazine, 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.

Fiction novels

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.”^[2]

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.^[3]

Swarm

He is currently writing his upcoming novel, Swarm.

Anthologies

Garcia contributed to the fiction anthologies Iguana Dreams: New Latino Fiction, published by HarperCollins (1992),^[4] Pieces of the Heart: New Chicano Fiction, published by Chronicle Books (1993),^[5] and Paper Dance: 55 Latino Poets, published by Persea Books (1995).

Nonfiction books

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.^[6]

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.^[7] 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.^[8] Newsweek published another article supporting Garcia’s argument with its September 20, 2010 article “Why We Need to Re-imagine Masculinity." ^[9] 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.”^[10]

New media, research and entrepreneurship

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.^[11][12]

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,^[13] 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.^[14] 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^[15] and the National Journal.^[16] He is a contributing producer to NPR’s Latino USA^[17] and PBS’s America By the Numbers with Maria Hinojosa,^[18] and has appeared on NPR’s Brian Lehrer Show.^[19]

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.^[20]

Career timeline

• 2008: Publishes The Decline of Men: How the American Male Is Tuning Out, Giving Up, and Flipping Off His Future (Harper Collins), a critical analysis of the economic, cultural and social malaise afflicting the American male, who is opting, instead, for superficial definitions of masculinity, self-destructive behaviors and virtual escapism, which Publishers Weekly called "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."
• 2004: The New Mainstream: How the Multicultural Consumer is Transforming American Business Harper Collins, a critically acclaimed book about emerging demographic, economic and marketing trends in the increasingly multi-ethnic American population. Wins “Best of 2004” Award from Soundview Executive Books Summaries.
• 2002–Present: President and CEO of Mentametrix Inc.—A multicultural research and marketing solutions company, focusing primarily on the concepts and insights of The New Maintstream.
• 2002: Vice President of AOL Broadband Programming/Music—Transitioned AOL Music to the new AOL Broadband Product and Programming group.
• 2001: Vice President, Content & Programming, AOL International—Australia, Canada, China, Japan and Latin America.
• 2001: Develops and launches TIME Voices/Voces and Frontiers/Fronteras—A groundbreaking cross-promotional collaboration between AOL Latino and Time Inc., CNN, Time Warner Inc., Time Warner Cable and AOL Mexico.
• 2000: Subject of a one-on-one interview with Peter Jennings on a special edition of ABC World News Tonight focusing on US Hispanics.
• 1999–2001: Vice-President, Content and Programming, AOL Latin America—All Latin American markets, including AOL Brazil, AOL Mexico, AOL Argentina, AOL Puerto Rico, and regional portal.
• 1998–1999: Director, Creative & Editorial Development, AOL Interactive Properties—Programming for ICQ, a web-based instant messaging system with more than 60 million users worldwide.
• 1998: Writes landmark Sunday New York Times feature on Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, and the social implications of the “second boom” of US Latino culture.
• 1997–1998: Executive Producer/Founding Editor, Digital City New York—AOL’s Digital Site for New York City.
• 1997: Publishes Spirit of the Maya (Walker & Company), a real-life story of a Mayan boy who discovers his ancestors created the pyramids and temples of Palenque, Mexico.
• 1995: Publishes Obsidian Sky (Simon & Schuster), a novel about a Chicano anthropologist who travels to Mexico to investigate his Aztec roots.
• 1994–1997: Co-Founder, Editor & Content Director of Total New York, Inc.—An award-winning New York City website later bought by AOL Digital City.
• 1994: Reports and writes the TIME Magazine cover story on the Maya; based on research for second novel Obsidian Sky.
• 1989: Publishes Skin Deep (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), a widely hailed novel about a Harvard-educated Latino lawyer who collides with his East LA roots.
• 1980–1993: Staff Writer, Time Inc.—Music reviewer and entertainment writer; domestic and International news features; Profiles; Culture; Music; Cinema; People; Showbusiness, Reviews. Authored seminal cover story on rise of U.S. Latino culture and Chicano Actor Edward James Olmos

References

External links

• Guy Garcia’s Official Website
• The New Mainstream
• Ethnifacts
• America Reimagined