They Call You Back

Centro Cultural Hispano de San Marcos welcomes Tim Z. Hernandez back to San Marcos.  

“Tim Z. Hernandez is one of the most soulful witnesses of our time. He doesn’t just voyage to the end of the earth for his stories, he steps beyond, invoking the spirits as he follows the blood. They Call You Back is the genesis of his artistry!” 

Stephanie Elizondo Griest
author of All the Agents & Saints

Hernandez’s mission to find the families of the twenty-eight Mexicans who were killed in the 1948 plane wreck at Los Gatos Canyon formed the basis for his acclaimed documentary novel All They Will Call You, which The San Francisco Chronicle dubbed “a stunning piece of investigative journalism,” and The New York Times hailed as “painstaking detective work by a writer who is the descendent of farmworkers.” 

In this riveting new work, 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. 

Tim Z. Hernandez is an award-winning author, research scholar, and performer. His work includes fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, and he is the recipient of the American Book Award, and the International Latino Book Award. His work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, C-Span, NPR’s All Things Considered, and many others. In 2018 he was recognized by the California Senate for his research on locating the victims of the 1948 plane wreck at Los Gatos Canyon, the incident made famous by Woody Guthrie’s song of the same name, which is chronicled in his book, All They Will Call You, and the sequel, They Call You Back. Hernandez holds an M.F.A. in Writing & Literature from Bennington College, and he is an Associate Professor with the University of Texas El Paso’s Bilingual Creative Writing program.  He lives in El Paso, Texas with his two children. You can find more info on his personal website.