 As recalled in his autobiography, "Barrio Boy", the young Man successfully navigated the cultural differences in the public school system, received a scholarship to Occidental College in Los Angeles, and then went on to earn a master's degree in history at Stanford University in 1929.Galarza worked with the Pan-American Union (now the Organization of American States) in Washington D.C. from 1936 through 1947 publishing analyses on educational, labor and infrastructure issues in Latin America.In 1947, he completed his doctoral dissertation on the electricity industry in Mexico and earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University.