70 Years After Fatal Plane Crash, A New Novel Tells The Victims' Stories

Five years ago, Valley Public Radio brought you the story of one man’s search for names that it seemed had been lost to history. Fresno author Tim Z. Hernandez was searching for the families of the 28 passengers who died in a plane crash in western Fresno County in 1948. The passengers on the U.S. Immigration Service flight were Mexican nationals en route from Oakland to El Centro. Yet when newspapers published accounts of the crash, the vicitms went unidentified. That injustice prompted Woody Guthrie to write a famous song (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos) and also led Hernandez to search the U.S. and Mexico for the families of those who perished. Now after years of searching, Hernandez has located several families, gathered their oral histories, and crafted what he learned into a new novel, All They Will Call You.Hernandez joined us on Valley Public Radio to talk about his search and the new book.