He was admitted to the Texas Bar in 1938, and worked as an assistant for the
district attorney of
Bexar County, Texas, John Schook, in 1938, and city attorney Victor Keller in 1941. In 1941 he was
drafted into the
United States Army. He became a first lieutenant in the United States Army, and was stationed in Japan with the judge advocate corps. Garcia participated in the founding of the
UN in San Francisco in 1945. On February 1, 1947, he joined the office of the Mexican Consulate General in San Antonio, Texas. In April 1947, Garcia filed suit against Cuero, Texas school authorities to force closure of the segregated schools for Mexicans there. After the Mendez v. Westminster ISD case ended de jure segregation of Mexican-descent children in California, Garcia filed a similar suit in Texas, aided by R. C. Eckhardt of Austin and A. L. Wirin of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. Delgado v. Bastrop ISD (1948) made the segregation of children of Mexican descent in Texas illegal. Garcia served as legal advisor to the
League of United Latin American Citizens from 1939 to 1940. He was elected to the San Antonio Independent School District Board of Education in April 1948, but later resigned. He helped revise the LULAC Constitution to permit non-Mexican Americans to become members in 1949. In that year, he also served as lawyer to the family of Felix Longoria, and helped contract negotiations for the rights of workers in the United States-Mexico Bracero Program. On May 8, 1950, Garcia and George I. Sanchez appeared before the State Board of Education to seek desegregation enforcement. Garcia was legal advisor to the
American G.I. Forum from 1951 to 1952. He helped pass an anti-discrimination bill in Texas. Garcia served on the first board of directors of the American Council of Spanish Speaking People, and the Texas Council on Human Relations, and helped the School Improvement League, the League of Loyal Americans, the Mexican Chamber of Commerce, and the Pan American Optimist Club. In 1952, the University of Texas Alba Club named him "Latin of the Year." Garcia became legal counsel for the League of United Latin American Citizens, and the
American GI Forum. He assisted in
Hernandez v. Texas (1954), the first case by Mexican Americans to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. On January 19, 1953, he and attorney Carlos Cadena of San Antonio filed a writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme Court requesting review of the Hernandez case, because the trial was decided by an
all-white jury in Edna, Texas. The legal expenses made it necessary for Carlos Cadena to make appeals on Mexican radio stations asking the community for donations. Due to this appeal, Chico Vasquez and Bill Aken (adopted son of Mexican actress
Lupe Mayorga) formed the Mexican rock and roll band 'Los Nomadas' in East Los Angeles, California and played at dances, shows, and concerts to help raise money for the cause. When Garcia appeared before the Supreme Court on January 11, 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren gave him sixteen extra minutes to present his argument. The Supreme Court ruled that exclusion of eligible jurors due to their ancestry of national origin violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Ultimately, Hernandez was found guilty of murdering his employer, who was also Mexican American, in a fit of rage. In 1955, Garcia stayed in a hospital several times, probably due to alcohol abuse. Invitations to LULAC and G.I. Forum meetings and conventions declined by 1956. Garcia passed several bad checks in 1960 and 1961, leading James Tafolla, Jr., and other San Antonio lawyers to seek his disbarment. His law license was suspended from August 1961 to August 1963. ==Personal life==