Hernandez was one of four finalists for the inaugural Freedom Plow Award from the Split This Rock Foundation for his work on locating the victims of the plane wreck at Los Gatos.

Hernandez was raised in California's San Joaquin Valley, where he lived in farm-worker communities in the agricultural region.

In 1999, he apprenticed with Bay Area muralist Juana Alicia on a traditional fresco mural located at San Francisco International Airport.

[1] In the mid 1990s, Hernandez was mentored by poet Juan Felipe Herrera, and began studying writing, performance art, and theater under his tutelage.

While at CSU Long Beach he also studied with poets, June Jordan, Li-Young Lee, and performance artists such as Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and Commedia dell'arte.

In 2000 he was commissioned by the United Way of Greater Los Angeles and the National Fanny Mae Foundation to write and perform an original one-man show on homelessness and poverty.

With the help of Lance Canales, the two released a version of the song that included Hernandez reciting the names of those who perished in the 1948 Los Gatos plane crash.