While serving a 21–year prison sentence in the California Department of Corrections, Garcia made a name for himself as a reporter for the San Quentin News and began an unexpected freelance journalism career. He served on the editorial board for SQNews, chaired the SQN Journalism Guild as an instructor, and published articles in the Sacramento Bee, Washington Post, MIT Tech Review, Alta Journal, and The New Yorker. Garcia was awarded the UC Berkeley 2024 Local News Fellowship, which included a full-time reporting position for CalMatters. He also received the Mellon Foundation’s 2025 Haymarket Writing Freedom Fellowship.