ALL THEY WILL CALL YOU
RELEASED JANUARY 2017
Combining years of painstaking investigative research and masterful storytelling, award winning author, Tim Z. Hernandez weaves a captivating narrative from testimony, historical records, and eyewitness accounts, reconstructing the incident and the lives behind the legendary song. This singularly original account pushes narrative boundaries, while challenging perceptions of what it means to be an immigrant in America, but more importantly, it renders intimate portraits of the individual souls who, despite social status, race, or nationality, shared a common fate one frigid morning in January of 1948.
Reviews
Luis Alberto Urrea
Author of The Devil’s Highway
“Tim Z. Hernandez is the real thing. This epic, tragic story is finally being told, and it is in the best possible hands.”
Will Kaufman
Author of Woody Guthrie: American Radical
“A scrupulous writer and researcher, Hernandez has changed the course of America’s musical history, as well as it’s immigration history.”
Arlo Guthrie
Folk music legend, and son of Woody Guthrie
“Through Hernandez’s amazing work, I now know who these people were, their lives, their loves, and their journeys. “All They Will Call You” is a heart wrenching read for anyone who cares, and the names–now etched in stone in a far off graveyard– have become friends who will travel with me as long as I am walking.”
Hector Tobar
Author of Deep Down Dark
“There’s something miraculous about the storytelling feat Tim Z. Hernandez has pulled off in ‘All They Will Call You.’ With great compassion and patience, he has immersed himself in a long-forgotten episode of California history, and uncovered a multi-layered epic of love, injustice and family fortitude stretching across generations and borders.”
Robert Santelli
Grammy Museum Executive Director
“Woody Guthrie must surely be smiling, wherever he is. All They Will Call You completes the sad, yet compelling story outlined many years ago in his song “Deportees.” Thanks to Tim Hernandez, the souls of the migrant workers lost in that 1948 plane wreck can now rest peacefully. Required reading for true Guthrie fans.”
Susan Orlean
Author of The Orchid Thief
“An important and moving book, exploring the theme of identity and loss and disenfranchisement — topics that have never been more urgent than they are now. Hernandez has illuminated the present with this original and riveting examination of the past.”
Richard Montoya
Actor, Director, Producer, Culture Clash
“Hernandez’ loving detail and authentic knowledge of The Valley continues to plant him firmly in Steinbeck and Saroyan country while forging his own path. Part documentary part thriller Hernandez’ voice rings true nearly breathless with new information and a certain justice now rising like smoke from the wreckage in the canyons of his beloved and mysterious San Joaquin.”
“Told with a reporter’s eye and a poet’s voice, Tim Z. Hernandez makes us aware that by dismissing, or making nameless any group of human beings we are denying a fundamental sense of decency, compassion and respect to our own families, neighbors, friends and even ourselves. All They Will Call You is a great historical piece of work, completing the mission that Woody Guthrie embarked upon when he wrote his classic song long ago.”
Tim Z. Hernandez 