TEDx Speaker Daniel García Ordaz, a.k.a. The Poet Mariachi, served as the 2023 McAllen Poet Laureate and will continue in this honorary post in 2024-2025. His work has been taught and written about by academics across the U.S. and abroad and he is a 2018 Pushcart Prize nominee. García earned an MFA in Creative Writing, a terminal degree, from The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. He is also a high school English teacher and part of the dual enrollment faculty at South Texas College. García  is a songwriter, former journalist, photographicationisticator, and word-maker-upper. García appears in the documentary, "ALTAR: Cruzando fronteras/Building bridges." He is the founder of the Rio Grande Valley Int'l. Poetry Festival. García served in the U.S. Navy as a Hospital Corpsman. His individual book titles include the #1 bestseller books You Know What I'm Sayin'? and Cenzontle/Mockingbird: Songs of Empowerment (and its YA version), as well his latest bestseller, Read Until You Bleed: Funny and Thoughtful Poems For Funny and Thoughtful Children, a children's book. García's work has appeared in several journals and anthologies.