Where the Pistachios Grow
Meet my friend Tim Z. Hernandez.
TL;dr version: Support my friend, author Tim Z. Hernandez, in funding his full-length documentary about finding the families of the Mexican braceros Woody Guthrie immortalized in his song “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos Canyon).” Keep reading if you need to be persuaded.
Next month, as soon as I ship my grown-ass kid off to school, I’m flying to Oakland, then driving a smidge down the coast to spend a few days with my friends Mary, Chuck, Bobby, and Becca in Salinas, California. It’s a long overdue visit, but the last time I visited, I had experiences that changed the entire trajectory of my life. Let’s say that’s why I parse out my visits.
I’ll probably tell that story closer to the trip, because today I want to tell you about my friend Tim Z. Hernandez, whom I know because of Mary.
The first time I talked to Tim, I was interviewing him over the phone for an article in The Monterey County Weekly, where Mary was the editor-in-chief. At the time, Tim was teaching in Colorado after having published several books of poetry, and a book about “The Mexican Girl” Kerouac wrote about in On the Road.
He had a new project that brought him to The John Steinbeck Center’s annual festival—he was finding the names and histories of the Mexican braceros who died in a plane crash over California’s Central Valley in 1948. At the time of the crash, news outlets gave the names of the pilot, co-pilot, flight attendant, and INS agent who died. The 28 Mexican workers who were being deported and also perished weren’t named. They were lumped together as “deportees”. Woody Guthrie was so furious by this dismissal that he wrote the song “Deportees (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)” to protest.
Even if you don’t recognize the title, you’ve likely heard the song, as it’s been recorded by an all-star list of musicians from the last eight decades. And with the current abhorrent mass deportation and concentration camp nightmare in the U.S. that targets Brown people, this song depicting the lack of humanity and basic human rights given to Latino people in the U.S. is as relevant now as it was in 1948. Or 1976.
Long story short, since we met, Tim has published two books that stemmed from his research into the families directly impacted by the plane crash: All They Will Call You tells their stories, and last year’s magnificent They Call You Back chronicles Tim’s experience of finding the families and himself in this work.
Next: without studio backing, Tim is making a documentary connected to the books, bringing this urgent part of our history to screens at a time when we really need it. You can help by donating to the film’s budget.
Here’s Tim’s mission statement about the project:
ALL THEY WILL CALL YOU is a feature-length documentary that restores dignity to the 28 anonymous Mexican workers who lost their lives in a tragic plane crash as they were being deported in 1948. The film follows my 15-year quest as I went searching for the victims' families, captured their memories, recovered their buried legacy, published two award-winning books about my journey, and ultimately inspired the state of California to formally recognize this historical injustice.
Last summer, when They Call You Back was released, Tim happened to be scheduled for a book release event and a visit to the plane crash site near Coalinga in the Central Valley, not far from where he and Canales grew up. I was going to be in L.A. the same weekend, so I left the airport and headed north on Highway 5 to spend a night in Coalinga and celebrate my friend.
Turns out, driving up the five on a Friday afternoon, even hours before rush hour, is pretty brutal. Multiple traffic jams had me rolling into Coalinga too late to attend the event. But that was okay. I had the next day’s vigil at the Los Gatos Canyon crash site, too.
Driving into the Central Valley, I watched the sprawl of Los Angeles County morph into dusty farmland full of orchards and cattle feedlots. The production numbers are staggering. The area around this small town produces 250,000 head of beef cattle a year, has the largest garlic-packing facility in the world, and has covered over 3,000 acres with pistachio groves.
If you live in the U.S. and you eat pistachios or garlic, it likely went through Coalinga.
Being from the Midwest, I’m used to seeing the sprawl of big agriculture. Giant mass production chicken farms near my hometown house thousands of chickens in single barns. They’re processed at a facility just up the road from my parents’ new home. For almost 40 years, they lived in a house surrounded on three sides by enormous fields that alternated corn, wheat, and soybeans.
But what I saw in Coalinga was different. Bigger. More ever-present at every turn. Driving down a highway surrounded by pistachio groves, I spotted plenty of pro-Trump signs, in Spanish, warning workers that Biden and Harris were responsible for inflation.
I wonder how many votes they got.
I wonder how many of those voters are still there.
The next morning, I grabbed a giant cold brew and headed down the canyon. No signs were showing the way to the crash site. Logic indicated that, as long as I was going downhill into the heart of the canyon, I was on the right path.
Even though it was September, the temperature in the windless canyon blazed to the triple digits. Soon, the road took me into a petroleum processing facility where a sign reminded employees to take care of the earth and recycle.
A few miles later, a feedlot fence abutted the road. Black cows stretched in the mud and the shit against the fence, trying to cool themelves in the treeless pen.
The canyon looked like it would never end, just spiraling further and further downward through the massive money-making operations where the things we need originate. The guilt of every cheeseburger tugged hard.
Once again, I found myself running late, but this time with no clue where I was going. And I was okay with that. The gathering at the crash site was for people whose lives were changed by the doomed flight. They didn’t need some dizzy white girl running in late, rattling the ice in her coffee. I turned around and retraced my path out of the canyon.
While I wanted to see Tim and celebrate his success, what I needed was a chance to process what I had seen in Coalinga and the valley. I found an electric car charger for my rental, located at the luxury resort owned by the same corporation that owns the feedlot. Instead of going inside to have some water and lunch while the car charged, I rolled down the windows and grabbed a notebook:
Coalinga
State hospital—first right.
State prison—second right.
Groves upon groves,
orchards upon orchards.
Diagonal rows forever on land clean as my grandma's kitchen floor.
Workers welcomed with pro-Trump signs in Spanish,
blaming their problems on the other guys.
Every town in the Central Valley is the world capital of a food
—pistachios
—garlic
—artichokes
As much as the ground can surrender,
as much as the water can wet.
Los Gatos Canyon,
where the plane crashed,
homes oil fields and cattle lots.
Strange tall birds dip and stand,
dip and stand,
while black cows absorb the sun,
sleeping in their shit.
California is a garden of Eden,
and the valley is the hell that swallows brown lives
for everything that we demand.
Donate to make All They Will Call You: The Documentary a reality. Thanks!