A 5-year-old girl was taken to a hospital Wednesday evening after being shot in South Los Angeles, authorities said.

The shooting occurred near 41st Place and Woodlawn Avenue.

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Officer Mike Lopez with the Los Angeles Police Department said detectives were at the scene trying to sort out what happened.

The Los Angeles Fire Department responded about 5:30 p.m. to treat a small child suffering from a gunshot wound, spokeswoman Margaret Stewart said.

Lt. Raul Jovel with LAPD told KTLA-TV Channel 5 the child was transported in “very serious condition” and that it remains unclear what transpired that resulted in her injuries.

“We don’t want to assume it was self-inflicted; we don’t want to assume that it was a crime either,” Jovel told KTLA.

“This really impacted our officers; seeing a child that’s suffered an injury like this, so we’re also looking out for the welfare of our officers at this time.”

Con Pane Rustric Breads and Cafe, a popular, longtime Point Loma business, announced Wednesday that it was closing after a federal immigration audit that the owner says found a number of unauthorized workers.

In a Facebook post late in the day, the restaurant ownership called the closure a “heartbreaking loss,” but said it had no other choice given the large number of workers affected. The retail and wholesale business, which opened in 1999 on Rosecrans and Canon streets and a decade later moved to Liberty Station, supplies bread to a number of San Diego restaurants.

“We have been subject to an I-9 audit by immigration authorities (DHS/ICE/INS) which has resulted in a notice of suspect documents,” Con Pane said in a Facebook post to its followers. “The discovery of a large number of unauthorized workers has so disrupted operations we have had no choice but to close.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement was unable to immediately confirm late Wednesday whether a work-site audit had taken place at Con Pane but “we are working on it through the night,” said spokeswoman Lauren Mack.

Con Pane notified customers via Facebook that it was closing its cafe as of Wednesday and would cease wholesale deliveries Friday. It is unknown how many employees were found to be illegally working there, and owner Catherine Perez did not respond to an email seeking comment.

On its website, ICE explains that it uses what are known as “I-9 audits” and civil fines to ensure compliance with hiring laws. Since the mid-1980s, potential hires have been required to submit three forms of identification and certify eligibility on what is known as a Form I-9. It is up to the employer to accept or reject those documents.

Employers, states ICE, are given notice of an audit of their hiring records, after which businesses have three days to provide their I-9 forms. After that the agency conducts an inspection, according to the ICE website.

“If employers are not in compliance with the law, an I-9 inspection of their business will likely result in civil fines and could lay the groundwork for criminal prosecution, if they are knowingly violating the law,” ICE states.

Restaurateur David Spatafore, who had regularly used Con Pane bread for his Parisian-style bistro, Little Frenchie, in Coronado, said he was shocked by news of the closing.

“I was so bummed,” said Spatafore, whose company, Bluebridge Hospitality, operates a number of restaurants as well as Liberty Public Market. “The raisin hazelnut bread, her cinnamon rolls, her sandwiches, everything [Perez] does, from retail to her wholesale operation, is great and she’s going to be missed as a customer and neighbor at Liberty Station.”

Spatafore said restaurateurs do the best they can to verify that their workers’ documentation.

“We all go through the process of filling out an I-9 and verifying the documents, but we’re not a sanctioned agency to where we can completely 100% know if everything is perfect,” he said.

One of the more high-profile instances of a San Diego restaurant facing criminal prosecution for its hiring was the French Gourmet in Pacific Beach, which was raided in 2008 by ICE agents. Authorities arrested 18 workers that day, and the owner was convicted of a misdemeanor and fined $396,000.

The government’s web-based program E-Verify is available to employers, but many restaurants do not use it.

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A federal lawsuit filed this week alleges that two Santa Ana employees left two federal detainees locked and chained inside a hot van for four hours after returning the pair from their court hearings.

On April 8, Dongyuan Li, a 41-year-old Chinese citizen, and Romaldo Marchan Delgado, a 56-year-old Mexican citizen, were put in handcuffs, ankle shackles and waist chains, and placed in the back of the transport van after their hearings at the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse for a return trip to the Santa Ana jail, where they were being housed.

Because of the proximity of the federal courthouse to the city jail, the U.S. Marshals Service — which is responsible for housing federal pretrial detainees and certain other federal inmates — contracts with the city of Santa Ana to hold some detainees and inmates at the city’s jail, according to the lawsuit.

After Caroline Contreras, a correctional officer at the jail, parked the van and turned off the engine, she and Officer Ricky Prieto of the Santa Ana Police Department went inside the jail “without a backward glance,” leaving Li and Marchan Delgado inside, the lawsuit reads. The van was left in direct sunlight with the windows rolled up, according to the lawsuit.

The outside air temperature that day was about 84 degrees, according to the lawsuit. On a day when the temperature outside is 80 degrees, the temperature inside a car can reach 123 degrees in an hour, according to the National Weather Service. Li and Marchan Delgado were inside the van for four hours, according to the lawsuit.

As the temperature increased, both “began crying and sweating profusely … they struggled to breathe and wondered why they had been abandoned by the very persons who were charged with ensuring their safety. [Li and Marchan Delgado] eventually began to despair; with no end to their suffering in sight, they believed that they would die in that van,” the lawsuit reads.

At one point, a police vehicle pulled up alongside and parked next to the van. Prieto got out of the vehicle and walked around the perimeter of the van, according to the lawsuit. Marchan Delgado tried to get Prieto’s attention by hitting the side of the van. Prieto went inside the jail and didn’t return, according to the lawsuit.

Near the four-hour mark, Li saw another Santa Ana police officer walk alongside the van. With little strength left, she banged the side of the van to try to draw the officer’s attention.

Soon, several officers unlocked and opened the van and removed Li and Marchan Delgado. The two were suffering from extreme dehydration and heat exhaustion, drifting in and out of consciousness. They were taken by ambulance to Orange County Global Medical Center, where they remained for about two days.

When they returned to jail, the medical staff refused to provide them “adequate follow-up medical care,” according to the lawsuit.

Neither Prieto nor Contreras could be reached for comment.

A spokesman with the Santa Ana Police Department said he wasn’t familiar with the case and referred The Times to Paul Eakins, the city spokesman. Eakins declined to comment, noting the city doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

Thomas P. O’Brien, an attorney representing Li and Marchan Delgado, said Marchan Delgado was facing charges for returning to the United States after being deported and is serving time in federal prison.

Li was sentenced to 10 months in prison for running a so-called birth tourism scheme that catered to wealthy pregnant foreign nationals, usually from China, helping them travel to the United States and give birth here so their children would receive birthright U.S. citizenship, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. O’Brien said Li has returned to China.

O’Brien, a former U.S. attorney, said it remains unclear why the officers left his clients in the van, whether the officers were punished or whether the city has taken any action.

“They were absolutely helpless, chained up in the back of this sweltering van, and both of them, we think, almost died,” O’Brien said. “They’re traumatized to this day, understandably, and we want to find out why it happened and make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

Times staff writer Richard Winton contributed to this report.

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Thursday, Jan. 16, and I’m writing from Los Angeles.

If you are a woman who is so bold as to inhabit a vaguely public stage, chances are high that you will be called a lot of things that can’t be printed in a family newspaper. And then some.

It’s a truism that unfortunately appears to transcend industry or geography. Exist in public, and eventually an online mob will nitpick your looks, rate your sexual desirability in relation to your ability to do your job, and probably make threats vague and specific — regardless of whether you’re a female journalist, the founder of an indie game studio or trying to run a small city on the Central Coast of California.

San Luis Obispo Mayor Heidi Harmon was fed up when she finally took to Facebook last Monday morning to call out the constant harassment she receives.

“The amount of cruelty, rudeness, threats, sexism, stalking, body shaming, rude/threatening comments towards my children, etc. I receive are unbelievable,” she wrote. She felt torn between her ability to use social media for constructive good and the toxic online sludge that often comes her way there.

A few hours after Harmon published her Facebook post, a man was arrested at City Hall for trying to force his way into the mayor’s office. The man, who has reportedly been romantically fixated on Harmon, knocked a city staffer to the ground before being restrained by the city manager.

[See also: “Mayor Harmon calls out harassment. Then a man is arrested charging into her SLO office” in the San Luis Obispo Tribune]

But Harmon, who was fortunately not at City Hall at the time of the incident, is far from alone in her experiences.

A recent study published in the academic journal State and Local Government Review found that mayors — women and men — face greater levels of physical violence and psychological abuse than those in the general U.S. workforce, with social media being the most common channel for that abuse.

Female mayors were not only much more likely to face some form of violence or abuse, but they were also more likely to experience abuse of a sexualized nature.

[See also: “ ‘Worthless. Gutless. Loser.’ Online Attacks Escalate When the Mayor Is a Woman.” in the New York Times]

“Women are facing more of this kind of abuse and violence, and more types of it,” Sue Thomas, a research scientist and co-author of the study, told me. “That differential is what concerns us about the kinds of people who will represent us in the future.”

Harmon also said that she worries about the young women who may opt out of public service because of what officeholders like her face.

Speaking over the phone, Harmon told me that she was particularly troubled to see an Instagram comment saying she “deserved to be sexually assaulted” appear after last Monday’s incident at City Hall.

“It’s completely devastating to see that even in the light of serious threats against me that people would still comment in that way,” she said.

Harmon was careful to draw a distinction between “differing opinions,” which she welcomes, and “abuse,” which has led to family members calling with concerns about her safety.

Some of the abuse is explicitly gendered and, at times, even graphically sexual — like a local anonymous Instagram account that recently reposted a photo Harmon had shared of herself with a bloodied knee from a bike accident, with added text suggesting that she’d received the injury while engaged in a sex act with the governor.

But in Harmon’s view, even many of the non-explicitly gendered attacks — like the people who call her “trailer trash” because she lives in a mobile home, or those who mock her because she worked as a housecleaner while raising her now grown children — are still “rooted in misogyny.”

Much of it comes via social media, but Harmon said she also often experiences comments from men — her constituents — that are of an “inappropriately sexual nature, or even just focused on my looks as a general category” while out in public, doing her job.

In those instances, she often feels torn about how to proceed. How do you call someone out for inappropriate comments while also trying to build consensus and focus on the meaningful work you’re trying to accomplish for your city? “It puts me in a really tough position,” she said.

She recalled a particular incident from a few years ago, when she was introducing someone whose work she admired at a local event. After the mayor walked off stage, the man grabbed the microphone. The first thing he said was, “Wow, how great it must be to live in a town with a kissable mayor,” Harmon recalled.

His words were, as Harmon put it, “theoretically complimentary,” but they also took away her power and reduced her to an object.

Harmon said that she has played the incident over in her head many times since, especially in light of recent events. Each time, she would wonder what she would do differently had it happened now.

“I think I would have walked back on stage, asked him nicely for the microphone back and just named it,” she mused. She would tell him why it wasn’t OK, and why it was a misogynist comment, she said.

“I am not here to be kissed,” she continued. “I’m here to lead this city and to create policy for the people in this community.”

And now, here’s what’s happening across California:

California Supreme Court Justice Ming W. Chin will step down on Aug. 31, giving Gov. Gavin Newsom an early opportunity to put his stamp on the state’s highest court. The Pete Wilson appointee was considered a moderate voice when he joined what was then a conservative court nearly 25 years ago. Now the seven-member court has a Democratic majority for the first time in decades, and Chin is considered its most conservative member. The next appointee will give the court five of seven justices appointed by Democrats. Los Angeles Times

USC questioned whether Lori Loughlin’s daughters were really athletes a year before the admissions scandal broke. In March 2018, several high schools contacted USC, puzzled that certain students were being admitted as recruited athletes. Los Angeles’ Marymount High School, attended by actress Lori Loughlin’s two daughters, “doesn’t think either of the students are serious crew participants,” a USC employee wrote in an email. Los Angeles Times

L.A. STORIES

A radio call to the LAX control tower raises more questions about Tuesday’s jet fuel dump over a school. The pilot told air traffic controllers he did not need to drop fuel before returning to LAX, but the plane eventually dumped fuel over a residential area minutes before descending. Los Angeles Times

Gustavo Dudamel has extended his L.A. Phil contract through 2025-26. During the decade that Dudamel has been at the conductor’s podium, the L.A. Phil has grown into one of the world’s most important orchestras. Los Angeles Times

The rise of the “dancefluencer”: These L.A. dancers show how the internet is helping nontraditional talent break into the industry. Los Angeles Times

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

Reps. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) and Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) are among the House members who will prosecute President Trump during the Senate impeachment trial, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said Wednesday. Los Angeles Times

CRIME AND COURTS

A federal judge revoked the bail of Los Angeles attorney Michael Avenatti and ordered him jailed while awaiting trial on three indictments, saying new allegations of fraud and money laundering show he poses a danger to the public. Los Angeles Times

HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT

In a wildfire, animal rescue can be messy; untrained volunteers add to the chaos. When the Camp fire hit Paradise, Calif., scores of volunteers wanted to help, but good hearts are not a defense against danger. Los Angeles Times

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A video showing a “Naked and Afraid” survivalist eating a dead baby dolphin on a Laguna beach has spurred an investigation. Laguna Beach lifeguards said they became aware of the incident after seeing a post on TMZ. Long Beach Press-Telegram

CALIFORNIA CULTURE

The San Francisco ficus fracas: An elected official wades into the yearslong battle between community advocates hoping to spare dozens of ficus trees and the city agency pushing to ax them. Mission Local

Advocates for minorities and low-income people fear that Uber’s recent overhaul of its ride processes could lead to discrimination against people traveling to neighborhoods that some drivers perceive as less desirable. San Francisco Chronicle

For many residents on the verge of homelessness, Fresno’s motels are their last chance at housing. A new ordinance focuses on inspecting the oldest and most run-down properties. CalMatters

Yosemite’s “firefall” glow lasts only two weeks. Here’s how to see it. Los Angeles Times

CALIFORNIA ALMANAC

Los Angeles: partly sunny, 62. San Diego: partly sunny, 62. San Francisco: rain, 51. San Jose: rain, 50. Sacramento: rain, 48. More weather is here.

AND FINALLY

Today’s California memory comes from Nina Hall:

If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. (Please keep your story to 100 words.)

Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints, ideas and unrelated book recommendations to Julia Wick. Follow her on Twitter @Sherlyholmes.

Tell an actor that his work is Oscar-worthy, and he’ll graciously accept the kind words while silently damning you for potentially jinxing his chances.

Tell an actor who’s never been nominated for an Oscar that this is finally going to be his year and, as was the case with Antonio Banderas a couple of months ago, he’ll smile, offer his gratitude and then, casting his gaze downward, softly add that he’s heard that kind of thing before and he doesn’t want to get his hopes up.

Backstage at the Montalbán Theater in Hollywood in late October, I was talking with filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, shortly before leading a Q&A for “Pain and Glory,” his moving, loosely autobiographical story of acceptance and reconciliation, creation and remembrance.

Banderas arrived and, before he could sit down, was surrounded by well-wishers telling him that he gave the performance of his career in the film.

Banderas had already won the best actor prize at the Cannes Festival, where “Pain and Glory” premiered. Now everyone was telling him he’d be going to the Oscars. “That’s nice to hear those kinds of things,” Banderas told me later. “But an Oscar is very difficult. I don’t even want to think about it.”

So when he was having lunch with friends Monday at a restaurant in Málaga, Spain, and people around him began screaming, Banderas finally allowed himself to think about it. At the age of 59, three years after suffering a heart attack that forever altered his perspective (heart attacks will do that to you), he had earned his first Oscar nomination.

Amid all the elation and anger, thanks and fury that come with the Academy Awards, there are dozens of stories like that of Banderas. That he earned a nomination was something of a small miracle. His work in “Pain and Glory,” playing a filmmaker fighting physical pain and creative malaise, is subtle and shaded. And Oscar voters typically reward not the “best” but the “most.”

This year’s nominations reflect that mentality. You could make a case that Banderas gives the most interesting and deeply felt performance of the five nominated actors, a group that includes Joaquin Phoenix (“Joker”), Adam Driver (“Marriage Story”), Jonathan Pryce (“The Two Popes”) and Leonardo DiCaprio (“Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood”).

In addition to the Cannes award, Banderas won the best actor prize from the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. and the New York Film Critics Circle, groups that rarely agree on anything, as well as the National Society of Film Critics. Film critics don’t hand out the Oscars. But when you have that kind of unanimity among the nation’s three most prominent critics organizations, academy voters should at least listen.

Last year, the lead actor Oscar went to Rami Malek, who deployed prosthetic teeth to play Queen frontman Freddie Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Malek thought so much of the dentures that he asked Chris Lyons of British-based Fangs FX to make him a gold set as a memento, and if he doesn’t use these as the villain in the new Bond film, that would be a tragedy.

The year before, Gary Oldman transformed himself into the portly, bald British prime minister Winston Churchill with the help of a makeup team that, among other things, gave him a new neck, nose, chin and ears. He won the Oscar and the hand of his fifth wife, after proposing to her dressed as Churchill.

Scroll through the list of lead actor Oscar winners from the past decade and you’ll find Daniel Day-Lewis playing Abraham Lincoln, Leonardo DiCaprio’s frost-bitten frontiersman in “The Revenant,” an emaciated Matthew McConaughey (“Dallas Buyers Club”) and Eddie Redmayne physically deteriorating as Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything.”

Naturally, this year’s front-runner for the prize is Joaquin Phoenix, whose expressive face is buried beneath clown makeup for much of “Joker.” Phoenix also shed 52 pounds prior to filming, according to director Todd Phillips, and Phillips made sure you were aware of his actor’s efforts, repeatedly focusing his lens on Phoenix’s bony body.

There’s no doubting the commitment. But I think Phoenix should have won the Oscar for Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master” and at least have been nominated for “You Were Never Really Here” — great portrayals of recognizable humans dealing with trauma.

This year, you could make a case for DiCaprio’s funny and empathetic take on the insecurities of actors in “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” a performance that’s specific and yet universal, for who among us hasn’t harbored regrets after a few too many whiskey sours?

But Banderas’ emotionally raw portrayal of a man finding renewal after surrendering to despair is the performance that has stayed with me. “The role was a gift from Pedro,” Banderas told me in October, motioning to Almodóvar. “I’d call it the greatest gift of my career.” That the academy recognized this gift was one of the most heartening moments of this year’s Oscar nominations.

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Prolific TV producer Ryan Murphy will be honored by GLAAD this year for making “a significant difference in accelerating LGBTQ acceptance.”

The media watchdog announced Thursday that “The Politician” director will be this year’s recipient of its prestigious Vito Russo Award when the 31st GLAAD Media Awards take place in New York on March 19. The producer joins this year’s other GLAAD honorees, singer Taylor Swift and Murphy’s “Pose” co-writer, director and producer Janet Mock, who will be honored at the organization’s Los Angeles awards ceremony on April 16.

“Ryan Murphy is a talented trailblazer behind some of the most innovative and popular LGBTQ projects in television, theater and film history, and he continues to bring underrepresented LGBTQ voices to the table in ways that raise the bar in Hollywood,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement to The Times.

Ellis added: “Ryan’s unique and gifted brand of storytelling has not only entertained the masses but provided LGBTQ youth with characters who inspire them to live boldly and proudly.”

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The award, named after the advocacy group’s founder, is presented to an openly LGBTQ media professional. Previous honorees include “Pose” star Billy Porter, journalist Anderson Cooper, musician Ricky Martin and TV personalities Andy Cohen and RuPaul.

Murphy’s other high-profile and multihyphenate projects include “The Normal Heart,” “Nip/Tuck,” “Scream Queens,” “Glee” and the anthologies “American Horror Story,” “American Crime Story” and “Feud.” He’s won six Emmy Awards, a BAFTA, a 2019 Tony Award for his revival of “The Boys in the Band” and a Peabody Award over the course of his career.

He’s showing no signs of slowing down either: His next projects include the Netflix series “Ratched” and “Hollywood,” and he’ll direct the feature adaption of Broadway hit musical “The Prom,” with a cast that boasts Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman and James Corden.

Murphy, 54, previously donated all profits from “Pose” and a benefit performance of “The Prom” to charitable organizations working with the LGBTQ community, such as the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, the Trevor Project and GLAAD. In 2016, he launched Half, an initiative that aims to create equal opportunities for women and minorities behind the camera in Hollywood.

Last week, GLAAD announced the nominees for its 31st GLAAD Media Awards, recognizing “Bombshell,” “Booksmart,” “Downton Abbey,” “Judy” and “Rocketman” in its film categories. In television, the dramas “Batwoman,” “Billions,” “Euphoria,” “Killing Eve,” “The L Word: Generation Q,” “The Politician,” “Pose,” “Shadowhunters,” “Star Trek: Discovery” and “Supergirl” were among the nominees. Also nominated were comedies “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “Dear White People,” “Dickinson,” “One Day at a Time,” “The Other Two,” “Schitt’s Creek,” “Sex Education,” “Superstore,” “Vida” and “Work in Progress.”

A glimpse of the daily life of a sex worker is one way to look at “Jezebel,” multi-hyphenate Numa Perrier’s autobiographical micro-indie that toggles between a family’s cramped one-bedroom apartment and the offices of an online porn site. But a richer way to view this sincere, unexpected gem is as a portrait of blossoming agency at the intersection of race, sexuality, gender and poverty.

That sounds like a lot for the shoulders of a modest character study, one that writer/director/producer/co-actor Perrier — drawing from her own youthful experience as a “cam girl” in Las Vegas — apparently shot in only 10 days, and finished with help from a GoFundMe campaign (as poetic a change in web-earning prowess as one could imagine). But those issues aren’t really on the shoulders of “Jezebel,” they’re its beating heart: in the gifting of a wig as a performative prop, in family squabbles about who’s pitching in and who isn’t, in the shoptalk of sex workers, and in the name 19-year-old Tiffany (Tiffany Tenille) assumes when she takes the advice of her older sister Sabrina (Perrier), a phone sex operator, and answers an ad for an “internet model” at a fetish website.

The notorious Jezebel stereotype as applied to black females dates back to slavery. But as Tiffany’s chosen moniker it’s a wry modern reclamation, as she’s the only black woman among her mostly friendly co-workers, making good (then better) money from the unquenchable desires of white men with whom she thankfully never has to be in the same room, and discovering something about her sexual power, bargaining might and self-pride in the process.

At home, though, in the weekly rental she shares with four other family members — including judgmental but jobless brother Dominic (Stephen Barrington), and Sabrina’s young daughter Juju (Rockwelle Dortch) and hanger-on boyfriend Dave (Bobby Field) — life’s frustrations and exhalations make for a situation ever in flux. The siblings’ mother has just died, they’re behind on rent (and can hardly pay for a funeral), and right now only the women are working.

But Perrier — who is also a very fine naturalistic actor in conveying Sabrina’s weary authority — avoids easy melodrama directing this scenario, preferring to suggest the lived-in feeling of a tight-knit group who can grate on each other but also try to do their part, and who grab where they can the moments of closeness that help them feel not so constrained by their hardship. There’s also a true filmmaking sensibility she and cinematographer Brent Johnson bring to the two-location construct — angles, colors and choreography imbue each scene with the relevant tone, of either privacy invaded or intimacy welcomed. It’s a welcome thoughtfulness of style that counterbalances the kitchen-sink urgency usually applied to these tales.

Tiffany’s on-the-job scenes, meanwhile, are somehow both quotidian and sensual — workplace details and role-playing in a careful dance. Perrier’s striking handling of them makes for one of the more lively, nonjudgmental portrayals of sex work to be found in recent cinema. That said, Tenille’s coming-of-age role is a tricky one, and her emotional shifts can sometimes feel curious more than illuminating. But she’s got a bright, engaging face and physicality that effectively communicate someone looking to emerge with each turn of fate, not shrink.

It says something about the kinds of underclass stories we typically get in movies that one watches “Jezebel” waiting for the kind of emotional devastation or tragic plot twist that confirms a well-entrenched, culturally biased tendency to view certain lives as only hopeless or eternally sad. That Perrier has instead turned her memories of an uncertain time into something honest, funny, sexy and warm — and, sure, not unsuspenseful — is worth cherishing. “Jezebel” is a reminder that in everyday human stories is proof that the world is wide, and that in going behind the doors that movies rarely open, there are even more worlds worth discovering.

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Jeanine Cummins’ fourth book, “American Dirt,” is a surprising departure from her previous novels, which mined her Irish ancestry for substance and inspiration. (She’s also of Puerto Rican heritage.) “American Dirt,” according to the author’s note, was shaped by four years of research and a concern for the plight of undocumented immigrants. It charts the heroic escape of a Mexican woman from the clutches of a vindictive drug lord in Acapulco.

Lydia Quixano Pérez is a middle-class Mexican woman who runs her own bookstore while her husband, Sebastián, is a journalist, a hazardous occupation, to say the least, in a country deemed one of the most dangerous for members of that profession. Though wary of the rising violence in the area, Lydia maintains a false sense of security by ensconcing herself in her shop and focusing on her maternal duties at home, where she’s overprotective of her 8-year-old son, Luca.

This relatively sheltered life breaks wide open when a quinceañera in the Pérez residence comes under attack by gunmen, leaving 16 family members dead, including Sebastián. Only Lydia and Luca survive. Though shocked by the assault, Lydia knows “from the very first sound of mayhem in the yard, that Javier was responsible for the attack.” That’s Javier Crespo Fuentes, a frequent client at her bookstore, with whom she became emotionally invested, and whom her husband had profiled as “La Lechuza,” a ruthless leader of a drug cartel.

With their lives threatened, Lydia and Luca embark on a journey out of the city and toward the U.S. border, navigating obstacles and setbacks at every turn, suffocated by a paranoia that one of “the modern bogeymen of Mexico” is waiting at the next corner. Their best fighting chance is to join the Central American migrants on their route to the border: “This is the one benefit to being a migrant, of having effected this disguise so completely: they are nearly invisible. No one looks at them, and in fact, people take pains not to look at them.”

Lydia and her son suffer hunger, threats of physical harm and other indignities just like all the other migrants, including Rebeca and Soledad, two young women from Honduras who become their faithful traveling companions. Lydia, however, is blessed by one stroke of luck after another: from being able to obtain hefty funds from her dead mother’s bank account, to being able to pass as a member of a missionary group (because of her fair features), to finding the right ally in the most dire of situations.

It’s a bit cinematic but indicative of the kinds of privileges that set Lydia apart from her fellow travelers. Yes, she faces the same perils, but as a Mexican citizen of means and an education, she has resources and connections that the others don’t.

Cummins’ decision to center the story on Lydia is a good decision, and I wish the book had remained a narrative about a woman who is willing to do the impossible to save her son. If hopping on La Bestia, the Train of Death, with her child in tow is what it takes to secure his well-being, then Lydia stands as a true testament to the strength and power of motherhood.

But the book ventures into the larger political minefield of immigration, particularly the sensitive territory of Central American migration. By employing the third-person omniscient point of view, Cummins not only shows insights from the unique perspective of Lydia, who is the outsider, but also from the perspectives of characters like Rebeca and Soledad, who are the insiders. The Honduran women’s tragic back stories sound a bit too familiar, and their characterizations are inscribed within an outsider’s wishful but two-dimensional view of women in this situation: They’re illustrious examples of resilience and perseverance; they are defined by their victimhood. That at one point they call themselves “Indian” and not “indigenous” also shows a lack of insider knowledge (or research) on the part of the author.

One supporting character who does benefit from the third-person omniscient point of view is Lydia’s son Luca. He’s a book-smart kid who matures from a boy who’s afraid someone will open the bathroom door on him to the intuitive boy who understands so viscerally the truth of his own mortality. Rebeca senses this growth when she tells him, “You seem a lot older than you are. Like you’re this old man in this tiny body.”

Indeed, it is Luca who surmises that, “though they all come from different places and different circumstances, some urban, some rural, some middle-class, some poor, some well educated, some illiterate, Salvadoran, Honduran, Guatemalan, Mexican, Indian, each of them carries some story of suffering on top of that train and into el norte beyond.”

In “American Dirt,” Cummins tells a highly original story, and I enjoyed following Lydia’s adventure. But the characters’ moralizing and other moments of pandering to social justice language toward the end of the book get in the way of the narrative, which, stripped of the other points of view, could have shined more compellingly. That’s unfortunate because Lydia’s journey is ultimately a story of personal growth. After all, once she was one of “the comfortable elite” who “pitied those poor people,” until fate intervened and she trekked over 1,000 kilometers in their shoes.

American Dirt

Jeanine Cummins

Flatiron Books: 400 pages; $27.99

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González is a professor of English and director of the MFA program at Rutgers-Newark. He was born in Bakersfield and raised by farmworkers who migrated between Mexico and the U.S.

Each year, visitors to Yosemite National Park turn out to see a natural phenomenon that lasts just two weeks in February: the winter “firefall.” The waning light of winter days hits a waterfall on El Capitan’s granite walls at just the right angle to create a streak of orange resembling a lava flow. “Just before and after sunset, it’s glowing like it’s on fire,” Yosemite ranger and spokeswoman Jamie Richards says.

The phenomenon became popular in 1973 after National Geographic photographer Galen Rowell snapped a startling image of the glowing light. The firefall name harkens back to an old Yosemite tradition in which park employees would tip glowing embers off Glacier Point to create what looked like a man-made “firefall.” That practice ended in 1968, but the name stuck (though the park avoids calling it that).

When to go

Horsetail Fall tumbles about 2,000 feet down the eastern side of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. It’s seasonal, flowing only in winter and early spring. “To see Horsetail Fall glowing blood red is an almost supernatural experience,” according to the Yosemite Firefall website.

Photographer Aaron Meyers has captured stunning images of the waterfall’s glow and has written extensively about the experience on his website. He has calculated optimal viewing dates for 2020 — Feb. 12 through 28 — with the best projected time between 5:28 and 5:40 p.m. on Feb. 22.

Conditions have to be just right to see the glow. Skies must be clear; the slightest haze or passing cloud around sunset time can ruin the effect. “It’s a natural phenomenon and there’s no way to predict what it’s going to be like,” Richards says. Info: Yosemite National Park’s Horsetail Fall page

Where to go

There’s no single perfect viewing spot to see the light show. No permits or passes are required either. You can stop and set up anywhere between Yosemite Falls and the El Capitan picnic area, depending on what view you want to photograph, according to Richards. Meyers notes the picnic area is one of the most popular viewing locations. (Only disabled drivers are allowed to park there during the February event; all other visitors must park vehicles at Yosemite Falls and walk over.)

Where you choose to stand really depends on when you go during the two-week period. “The sunset starts out on the west side of the rocks during early February and progressively moves east. … If you want to see the falls all lit up in the early firefalls season, go further east. As the sunset moves east you can move east (toward picnic grounds) to get good shots,” Meyers writes online. Info: Aaron Meyers Photography

What to bring

For anyone angling for a great shot, a good camera and sturdy tripod are a must. Meyers recommends getting to the viewing area early to scope out the area (crowds may start gathering as early as 2 p.m., he says). And he recommends taking some test shots to make sure your settings are correct. Dress warmly, with layers of clothing that should include an outer layer of fleece or puffy down jacket, warm hat and gloves.

Where to find a guided tour

AutoCamp Yosemite in Midpines, Calif., about 35 miles outside the park, offers stays in upscale tents, cabins and Airstream trailers as well as a clubhouse to hang out in. AutoCamp guests may sign up for a full-day Firefall Experience With REI between Feb. 19 and 22. It costs $275 per person (excluding accommodations) and includes round-trip transportation and a full day of touring in the park. REI provides a professional photographer to help you snap the perfect photo and sets up chairs for you to watch. To stay and reserve a Firefall Experience, call (877) 404-8355.

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My sister is 18 months older than I, but I’m taller. It used to drive her crazy as we were growing up when people asked whether we were twins or, worse, whether I was older.

I thought it was obvious. She was friendly, confident and funny. When I said she was older, I did so with a sigh of relief. I liked having her as my older sister. I was proud to follow her.

And follow her I did, from kindergarten all through high school. Our paths diverged at college. She had spent her junior year abroad in Sydney, Australia, and had a roster of international friends all over Europe.

A family medical emergency brought her back home after graduation, but she still found a way back to Europe. She spent a year in London earning a graduate certificate in international business practice. She hopped to other countries on breaks; she picnicked at Versailles, France, and saw the northern lights in Norway. Meanwhile, I finished college and stayed put in Pasadena, helping the family and working. I loved hearing her stories and seeing her pictures, her smile iridescent from a continent away. I read the Travel section while she traveled.

After her stint in the U.K., she settled in San Diego, but travel was never far from her heart. She met up with friends on the South American leg of a globetrotting adventure and together they toured Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

Early last year, she told me about a deal on plane tickets to London. She hadn’t been back in five years. I told her, half-jokingly, to book it, and she emailed me the flight confirmations for a 10-day trip around Labor Day. I was turning 30, and she called this a birthday present.

Well then.

It was a chance to do what I wasn’t able to do when she was there the first time: travel with my sister as adults, just the two of us. We had visited London as children on a family summer vacation, two decades ago. There was a lot of art I didn’t fully appreciate at age 10 and that was also well before I majored in history.

I gave her a list a mile long of things I had to see (Buckingham Palace, specifically the Queen Victoria Palace’s exhibit (since closed) commemorating Victoria’s birth in 1819; Kensington Palace, the birthplace of Queen Victoria; and such staples as the British Museum, the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, the Tate and so on).

Our biggest adventure was Chatsworth House, the seat of the Duke of Devonshire and home to the Cavendish family since 1549. (It’s best recognized as Pemberley in “Pride and Prejudice,” starring Keira Knightley.)

It’s in northern England, hours outside of Manchester and reaching it required trains, buses and good old-fashioned walking. We stayed at an inn on the Chatsworth property and, despite asking the kind front desk attendant for directions twice, still managed to get lost. (Go up the road, turn left, go through the field, through the gate, over the bridge, and you’ll be in the park. Right. I mean left.)

A kind man helped us. (We had taken the wrong left and gone through the fields on the opposite side of the road.) Once we crossed the road, we were on our way. Walking through fields of sheep in the English countryside really did feel like a Jane Austen movie moment.

My sister planned everything, from the train tickets to the Airbnb we stayed at in Camden. She timed our entrances to museums and didn’t even give me too much side-eye when, after touring a museum for two hours, I spotted a postcard in the gift shop that showed a piece I had to see.

Funny enough, I think my favorites were the pieces I didn’t expect. Turning the corner at Hampton Court Palace and coming face to face with “Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting (La Pittura)” by Artemisia Gentileschi took my breath away. As did the Arnolfini Portrait at the National Gallery and countless others. I had studied so many of these works, carefully pasting them on my handmade flashcards for my art history midterms, and suddenly there they were.

It wasn’t all museums. She showed me where she used to live and the pubs she frequented. I met her friends, matching up names to faces. I sat with them and imagined how they were five years ago, young adventurers, hungry to see the world. And I marveled at how they still hadn’t lost that sense of wonder. I think it was the most beautiful thing I saw on our trip.

We went to the exhibit of Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings at the Queen’s Gallery in Buckingham Palace. Fittingly, one of my favorite quotes of his is this: “It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.”

So thank you, my adventurous big sister, for exemplifying this, through your can-do attitude and openness to other places and people. For saying “yes” when it would have been more convenient (and more comfortable) to say “no.” And for leading me through that field of sheep.

All these years later, I’m still proud to follow you.

I’ve already started another list of things I can’t wait to see with you.

Departure Points explores the ways traveling changes us, whether it’s a lesson learned or a truth uncovered. You can submit a first-person essay of 700 or fewer words to [email protected] using “Departure Points” in the subject line. Please include your first and last names and your contact information for editorial consideration.

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