SAAW Podcast Host and Creator Bio

Miguel Garcia is a Sacramento-based Chicano podcaster and an Applied Cultural Anthropologist (MA). He is the creator and host of the Sports As A Weapon Podcast, a Chicana/o sports podcast on the entanglement of sports, radical politics, and working-class sports fan culture.

Miguel is a native of Colton, CA, in Southern California and was a community organizer in San Jose, CA, with Justice for Josiah. Miguel received his Master of Arts in applied anthropology from San Jose State University in 2017. He also received his BA in anthropology w/ honors from California State University, San Bernardino, in 2013.

Miguel’s Master’s Research Project, Street Vendors, Super Bowl 50, and the Spatial Politics of Immigration Control (Garcia 2017), examined San Jose’s street peddler policies and their impact on the local Latino street vendors. These street peddler policies included the NFL’s Super Bowl host city temporary clean zone ordinance required to host Super Bowl L (2016) in Silicon Valley. Moreover, Miguel examined the policing of undocumented immigrants, including street peddlers, in conjunction with President Donald Trump’s federal immigrant control practices and their impact on the street vendors.

His other research interests include police violence and police brutality in the Mexican/Latino community and sports and social movements. Miguel was awarded the SANA (Society of North American Anthropology) 2015 St. Clair Drake Student Travel Grant Award at the 2015 American Anthropological Association (AAA) annual meetings in Denver. He received the award for his paper, “Brown Lives Matter: Policing and Social Justice in the Silicon Valley.” In 2018, The Association of Latina and Latino Anthropologists (ALLA) chose Miguel as a Junior Scholar for their ALLA Mentorship Program.

Besides talking and writing about sports, culture, and politics, Miguel also enjoys reading, listening to other sports and politics podcasts, going on vacation, attempting to visit every MLB ballpark, and spending time with his girlfriend/partner Lauren and his Cat Matey.

Miguel is also a huge fan of the Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Dodgers, Las Vegas Raiders, Los Angeles Kings, and a fairweather Liverpool FC fan. His goal in 2021 is to watch more WNBA basketball, especially his favorite team, the Los Angeles Sparks.