José Garcia Villa was born in Manila in 1908 and emigrated to the United States in 1929.

 He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of New Mexico in 1932, then moved to New York for graduate study at Columbia University. Scribner’s published a collection of stories called Footnote to Youth in 1933. 

In 1933 his Footnote to Youth: Tales of the Philippines and Others (Charles Scribner’s Sons) became the first book of fiction by a Filipino author published by a major United States-based press. 

In 1933, Villa dedicated himself exclusively to poetry and the experimental opportunities poetry promised. His first collection,Have Come, Am Here, was published in 1942 by Viking, and won the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award. 

His awards and honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship (1942), Bollingen Foundation Fellowship (1951-52), Shelley Memorial Award (1958), Philippines Pro Patria Award (1961), Philippines Cultural Heritage Award (1962), and Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship (1963). He was appointed Presidential Adviser on Cultural Affairs by the Philippine government in 1968 and elected Philippines National Artist in 1973.