Tim Z. Hernandez is an award-winning author and associate professor at UTEP’s Bilingual M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing. He will be reading from his latest book, “They Call You Back: A Lost History, a Search, a Memoir,” Friday night at 7:30 at NMSU’s CMI Theatre as part of the Nelson-Boswell Reading Series. The book is a continuation of his investigation into the histories and stores from the families of the 28 Mexicans killed in the 1948 plane wreck at Los Gatos Canyons. Scott Brocato recently spoke with Hernandez about the book.
Scott Brocato:
Your latest book, “They Call You Back,” is, I guess you could say, a sort of prequel and sequel to your book, “And They Will Call You,” which was the account what's been dubbed “the worst airplane disaster in California history”: the 1948 Los Gatos plane crash. For those who are not familiar with that crash, can you briefly talk about it?
Tim Z. Hernandez:
Sure. In 1948, the United States government was deporting 28 Mexicans who were here on a work visa. They were part of the Bracero Program. And they were deporting them by airplane. This was after the contracts had expired. They were sending them back. And they left Oakland, California, and an hour into the...they were going from Oakland to El Centro, the San Diego border. An hour into the flight, the plane crashed down into Los Gatos Canyon. The wing caught fire, and it spiraled and crashed into Los Gatos Canyon, which is located not in Los Gatos, California, not in Steinbeck country, but located in the central San Joaquin Valley, in the ag hub.
And the plane, after it crashed, it killed all 28 Mexicans who were aboard and killed the four American, U.S. citizen, crew. And the newspaper accounts and media only reported the names of the four crew members: pilot, copilot, stewardess, and the immigration officer. They only reported their names and talked about who they were, but then only referred to the Mexican passengers as “deportees.” So they were nameless, and their names were erased and omitted in the record.
And Woody Guthrie, one of our great American folk heroes, was in New York, and he heard this over the news, and he decided to write a poem about this incident. He called it the "Plane Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportee).” And he was outraged by the omission of the Mexican passengers' names, and so he decided to try and write to restore the dignity. He wrote fake names. He said, you know, “Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita, adios mis amigos, Jesus Maria. You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane. All they will call you will be deportee.” It became a wonderful and probably one of the most popular, I think, protest songs of the, definitely of the 20th century. And for over the last 50, 60 years actually, and continues to be, because every generation of new musicians seems to find that song relevant and continues to sing it. And here we are. And that's what led me onto a journey of looking and finding out the story behind who those passengers were and what happened.
Scott Brocato:
Well, in “All They Will Call You,” you were able to locate seven of the 32 families of the crash’s passengers. In the new book, “They Call You Back,” you continue that search, while also turning the lens on yourself and your ancestral past. Talk about that and how each approach formed the other.
Tim Z. Hernandez:
You mean for the books, the approach for each book, you mean?
Scott Brocato:
Locating the passengers’ families and also investigating your past, your ancestral past.
Tim Z. Hernandez:
Yeah, absolutely. “All They Will Call You” was supposed to just be the only book originally, But what happened is when I began to write “All They Will Call You,” or research it, I didn't know what type of book it would be, because I write in different genres. And the way that I write is much more from an organic point of view. I publish and write poetry, fiction, nonfiction. So the way I approach subjects is usually I'll just write whatever comes of me, whatever language comes out of the material. And after I do that enough times for a long period of time, it starts to shape itself into something. Sometimes it's poetry, sometimes it's a story. I didn't know. I just was writing material.
And as I was writing, I was writing my journal entries. I was writing reflections. I was writing possibilities. I was writing all sorts of things. And suddenly, after about the second year of searching for these families, when I found the first family and I interviewed them, and I transcribed the interview, I realized this is none of those sort of things. This is actually, I need to give them room to speak--not my own sort of ideas of this, but just let them speak and tell the story. So “All They Will Call You” is the product of that first seven years of searching, from 2010 to 2017.
And when the book was done, I had found seven families up to that point. And the book went out into the world, 2017, it did well. And what happened is, as good art, as art has, it has its own gravity. And people would read the book, and I started getting contacts from people within months after the book was released saying, “I'm another family member... this also happened to my family...that was my grandfather.” And suddenly I found myself recording more interviews of new families. And these stories were also incredible. And I kept saying to them, every time a new family would call me, I'd say, “Why didn't you call me five years ago? I could have included this in the book!” And the stories were so riveting, so emotional, so powerful.
And so after gathering a few more stories, I started to realize, oh, maybe this continues. Maybe this is another sequel, who knows? So flash forward another seven years, 2017 to 2024. I found seven more families in that time, so now 14 families total. And I began to kind of look at all the interviews I had transcribed of the new families and think about it in new ways. And as I was going around the country talking about "All They Will Call You,” the first book, nobody was really...the audiences were never really asking too much about the families. I found that audiences were really intrigued by my searching for them. They were like asking me, how did I begin searching? What made me want to do that? All these questions. And I was like, you know what? I should turn to the writing. It's like I do with anything in life: I always write to figure myself out and my situation out. And that's how I started to write “They Call You Back.”
And I realized about halfway through working on this book, I realized this can't be a part two to the same book. It has to be a different point of view. What's the point of view I'd like to offer here? And I think the audience has determined that, which is we want to know about your search. What made you want to go look for these families? So with “They Call You Back,” that's why it's titled that, because they do call me back. And it was like, I'm going to write about my journey, my family. I'm going to reflect on what would make somebody want to go looking for others. And then in that story, also reveal the new families and new stories I found along the way. So that's how I wrote “They Call You Back.”
Scott Brocato:
What do you want readers to take away from the new book?
Tim Z. Hernandez:
I think my hope is that readers will pay attention to their own families, that readers will know that their own families are treasure troves of stories, of history, starting with our elders, which is the most obvious. But even our own journeys, we tend to sometimes think that history is what's important. Or we always often look for, what's an important thing that happened in my family that is worth telling or even preserving? What's an important moment? Some families will talk about when their family immigrated to this country. Others will talk about--whatever it is, some point in their lives that they think might be elevated to the point of relevance or importance.
And for me, it's not that way. I believe that just in the asking of stories, of family stories, our parents, our grandparents, and even ourselves, we are the living embodiment of what will become history. And therefore, because of that, what we have to say in our own experiences are important. And I hope that people just become attuned to that in reading my book. That's the hope, is they go, “oh, my grandfather, who's still alive; my father, my mother who's still alive, my own story--it is relevant. It is important.”
Scott Brocato:
It started with your grandfather, right?
Tim Z. Hernandez:
It did, it actually did. Yeah, my grandfather was a migrant farm worker since he was a little boy. I grew up in a migrant farm working family, and it wasn't until I was in my later years, a young father myself, that I began to sit with my grandfather at the end of his life and just sit with him and have a little audio recorder in hand and ask him about his life stories. And it wasn't anything important. I didn't say, “Grandpa, tell me about the Depression,” I didn't say any of that. It was just like, “Tell me about what life was like growing up for you.” And, you know, asking that question just very generally to any elder, right? “Tell me about your life.” It's a gift. It's such a gift that we can give to people.
Scott Brocato:
He was sort of startled by that, was he not? I mean, because I don't think anyone ever asked him that before.
Tim Z. Hernandez:
Yeah, no one had asked him that. Yeah. And that's when I realized this is a gift. And my grandfather began to look forward to when I'd knock on his door to talk with him, and he'd start to bring out little dishes of food. And we'd sit down outside in his little area there in his lawn and his table and talk. And he looked forward to that. And finally, one day before he had passed, he said to me, you know, he said, "You're my favorite grandson. Do you know why?” I said, "Why is that grandpa?” And he said, “Because when you come over, you don't ask me for anything. The other grandkids ask me for things. You just ask me for my stories. That’s it.” That was a gift.
Scott Brocato:
You'll be reading from your work Friday night at NMSU’s CMI Theater in Milton Hall, part of the Nelson-Boswell Reading Series. What can audiences expect that evening? What will you be reading from?
Tim Z. Hernandez:
You know, usually whenever I try...I also have a theater background, and I like sort of storytelling. So usually my presentations are more like that. They lean more into the sort of almost like stand-up comedy, except there's no comedy. I don't make people laugh as much, but I do tell some stories that are part of the journey, part of the search. Stories that are not in the books. Usually I'll tell stories that I wish I could have put in the book and I couldn't. And you know, I like to do that. I'll dip into the books here and there a little bit, but I'm pretty much sharing stories and hopefully making people laugh a little, cry a little, and think a little.
Scott Brocato:
Can you read a portion of “They Call You Back” now? Do you have an excerpt?
Tim Z. Hernandez:
Actually, you know what? I'm going to read from “All They Will Call You.” I'll read an excerpt from “All They Will Call You” just because I think it'll help give a nice context to what I'm doing here.
“It is in this spirit that the telling of the plane wreck at Los Gatos Canyon and how the song of the same name--which carried its message the world over--has been uncovered after nearly seven decades. While the telling itself is true, its loyalty is not to people of fact, but instead to people of memory. Which is to say, all of us. In this way, it's inevitable that some rememberings will contradict other rememberings. If several people witness the same tragedy and offer different accounts, whose version is the most accurate? In this case, perception is truth. And how reliable is fact anyway when the “official” documents themselves have been proven incorrect, beginning with the names of the passengers? Officialness too has its inconsistencies. To stumble upon a plane crash is to stumble upon the fragmented shards of stories, and to have faith that from these clues our own glaring humanity offers enough light to fill in the unknown. The facts of what occurred on that day are not, nor have they ever been, the purpose of this book. This telling is not interested in the calculable details, but instead the testimonies themselves, from people whose lives were touched directly in incalculable ways. How a tragedy and a song had a profound and lasting effect on the people who lived it.”
Scott Brocato:
And final question, what are you working on now?
Tim Z. Hernandez:
Man...well, I'm actually working on a documentary right now of this journey. That's the most exciting thing. Since the very beginning--now it’s been two books later, I've been working on this since 2010, you know, this research of this plane crash, finding all the families since 2010--so for 16 years now. Along the entire way I've had videographers with me getting footage of the journey. I've had audio recording with me, we've photographed it-- we've basically documented the whole journey. I have along with friends and people who have contributed.
And I thought one day this might be of some importance historically. And one day I sat down a couple of years ago with a filmmaker friend, and we just looked at all the footage, and we were crying and laughing and all these things. And he said to me--and he had never seen the footage before--and he looked over to me and he said, “You have a film here. It's a documentary. You could almost cut it just as with everything you've got right now, and it's already done. You're pretty close.”
And then I consulted with a couple of other filmmaker friends who've been doing documentaries and all that. And I wasn't easily sold on the idea, because this is new to me, a new area. But what I started to do, the way I do everything, is when I don't know something, I start to bring around people who do know and who I admire for their work. And I basically enter tutorials with them. They start sharing with me ideas and what it takes to do this. And so they've been sort of my, they've been consultants on the project, but really my mentors. And two years ago, I decided to start seeking funding to finish the project.
And anyway, long story short, here we are now in post-production. Everything is done, all the production. And we are looking to finish the film, the documentary, by this August, September already, to enter it in film festivals and that sort of thing. So right now we're in the process of fundraising to finish the post-production. But it's exciting. The Guthrie family's on board, we've interviewed a lot of great interviews--Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie-- it's been an incredible journey and I'm excited about the documentary. People can find that on my website or alltheywillcallyou.com. You can learn more about it.
