A Micro-Review of Tim Z. Hernandez's All They Will Call You

Matthew Krajniak

Tim Z. Hernandez’s first nonfiction work, All They Will Call You, is sharp and decidedly sobering. With this his sixth book, he investigates and reveals the stories of several of the twenty-eight Mexican deportees and four Americans who died in the worst plane crash in California’s history. Through this crash, Mr. Hernandez creates a narrative that is engaging not only for its meta-narratives, formal features, and in-depth research processes, but also for its highlighting of the contentious immigration discussions currently being held in the US—discussions that sound eerily familiar from the time of this plane crash, which occurred nearly seventy years ago.