The University of Arizona Press
September 16, 2024
This month author Tim Z. Hernandez published They Call You Back, a memoir about the investigations that have shaped the greater part of the author’s life. He takes us along on an investigative odyssey through personal and collective history to uncover the surprising conjunctions that bind our stories together. Hernandez continues his search for the plane crash victims while also turning the lens on himself and his ancestral past, revealing the tumultuous and deeply intimate experiences that have fueled his investigations—a lifelong journey haunted by memory, addiction, generational trauma, and the spirit world. Today, Tim answers five (plus bonus) questions:
In some ways, this memoir is a continuation of All They Will Call You, which documents your work to find the families of the twenty-eight Mexicans who were killed in the 1948 plane wreck at Los Gatos Canyon. In this new book, you describe your ongoing work tracking down the plane crash victims. Can you give us a peek at what you’ve uncovered since ATWCY was published in 2017?
Since the publication of ATWCY in 2017, I’ve located seven more families and was able to highlight some of them in this new book. But other exciting things have happened since then too. For instance, in 2018 the California State Senate formally recognized the accident and the families on the Senate floor. That was an exciting closure for the families who were there with me that day.
This work is about so much more than ATWCY. How have your searches for the victims intersected with your own life?
I wouldn’t necessarily say they “intersected” with my life, but in my pursuit to find these families I found myself having to grapple with some of my own family’s past, our history, the ups and downs. It was as if looking for their families I came to discover my own, and that’s what I tried to capture in this book.
You have several events this Fall, including one later this month at the Los Gatos Plane Crash Memorial. Why is it so important to present this story in public spaces with the community?
I feel like it’s important for the families so that they can finally receive some long overdue closure for what happened to their relative seven decades ago. But also, it’s a story that contains a lot of power—compassion, empathy, and a message of interconnection—so it’s only beneficial to the larger community if we share it far and wide.
We are probably biased, but we love the cover! How did it come together?
Haha! Yes, I love it too, VERY much! That’s the genius of University of Arizona Press cover designer Leigh McDonald! I knew I wanted the cover to reflect my own personal journey in some way while at the same time conveying it was still very much based on the historic Los Gatos plane crash. So I sent her a few photos of me looking “contemplative” and suggested there be an airplane in the sky somewhere distant. Leigh found a Douglas DC-3 photo and placed it in the sky, but it’s also slightly offset from my eye line, which is intentional because I didn’t want it to appear like it’s in the same space with me, but rather that it just also happens to exist in some parallel world. But then Leigh added the texture and just some really special nuances that brought the whole thing together. I’ve worked with her on past covers before too, and she’s always a pleasure to work with, but I have to say, this time she really hit it out of the park!
In addition to community collaborations, you are also collaborating with musicians. What has that been like?
Yes, I’ve always collaborated with musicians over the last 25 years of my writing career. Music is my second love after writing. For this book I actually co-wrote a song with one of my favorite indie folk-musicians, Ted Nunes, and he recorded it. It’s titled “They Call You Back” and as suspected it’s based on the book and my journey. I think music is always a good vehicle for stories and poems, and I try and bring that aspect to my performances as well. I want the work to always be engaging and entertaining, as much as educational. And music just helps with that.
We can’t help it. We have one more question. What’s next?
Haha! I’d like to keep some of the mystery, but I’ll just say that I’m working on a fictional novel for this next one. And it’s about an issue that is a concern to us all, but because of the approach I’m taking I’m really having to use my “dark tools” to write it. It’s unlike anything I’ve written before. It requires me to enter a very cynical state of mind to write it, which is not at all how I operate. Whereas the subjects of my books and poems are usually about interconnections and compassion, this one is very much about division and what happens when one goes down a twisted path that one can’t return from. Fiction feels like a nice break for the time being.
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About the Author
Tim Z. Hernandez is an award-winning author, research scholar, and performer. His books include fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and he is the recipient of numerous awards, including the American Book Award. His work has been featured in international media, and in 2018 he was recognized by the California Senate for his work locating the victims of the 1948 plane wreck at Los Gatos, which is chronicled in his book, All They Will Call You. Hernandez is an associate professor in the University of Texas at El Paso’s Bilingual Creative Writing program.
