El Paso author breathes life, dignity into victims of 1948 immigration plane crash

*Tim Z. Hernandez says his work is about bringing dignity to the unnamed immigrants who died in the crash. VL

By Ramón Rentería, El Paso Times

Author Tim Z. Hernandez has a passion for digging up and rescuing stories buried in anonymity.

This time, Hernandez, 40, is close to finishing what he describes as a “nonfiction novel,” chronicling the stories of 28 Mexican farmworkers and four others killed on Jan. 28, 1948, in a chartered immigration airplane that crashed and burned in Los Gatos Canyon, 20 miles west of Coalinga in Central California.

He has been doing research and interviewing eyewitnesses, relatives of the victims and others to recreate the stories of the 28 Mexican citizens buried in a mass grave in Fresno, Calif., almost 67 years ago, but not publicly identified until 2013.

Click HERE to read the full story.

[Photo courtesy of El Paso Times]

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