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Recently, my colleague Jose Del Real wrote about the role of LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, the Mexican-American community center and museum in downtown Los Angeles, in educating visitors about many of the lesser known — and darker — narratives from the city’s history.

In an exhibition that’s open there now, the artist Linda Vallejo aims to counter the fact that the perspectives of Latinos are still too often overlooked — even if she knows she doesn’t have all the answers to complex questions about identity and what it means to be a person of color in the United States.

“How I think about myself as a brown person, how I feel about myself and how the world sees me,” Ms. Vallejo told me recently. “I think we need a safe space to be able to speak about these things.”

“Linda Vallejo: Brown Belongings,” which opened this year, is the museum’s first show dedicated to the work of a solo Latina artist.

It includes works from several series that Ms. Vallejo, who was born in Los Angeles and is based here now, has created over years.

Among them are the series “Datos Sagrados,” or Sacred Data, and “The Brown Dot Project,” which both use statistics about Latino and immigrant populations in the U.S. as a jumping point.

In a piece from the former, called “30% of the U.S. Population Will Be Latino in 2050,” the number is translated into an abstract mandala-inspired design.

In “The Brown Dot Project,” each hand-painted dot represents people or percentage points.

Ms. Vallejo said she gathered the statistics from a variety of sources like the Pew Research Center and the census — but she hopes viewers will also take the pieces as cues to explore further.

“There are multiple learnings here,” she said. “Math and art actually do connect — and you can do research yourself.”

Ms. Vallejo said she hopes her work will provoke not just serious introspection, though.

“Make ’Em All Mexican,” is a series featuring pop culture figures — Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley — and icons like “Winged Victory of Samothrace,” painted brown.

They pose questions about how the music industry might be different, had, say, Presley been Latino or how subsequent generations of Hollywood would’ve been shaped by a Latina Shirley Temple. The mode of asking is a little cheeky, she said, and that’s intentional.

“I always appreciate it when someone is cracking up,” she said.

“Linda Vallejo: Brown Belongings,” will be on view at LA Plaza until January 13.

Here’s what else we’re following

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A recent report outlined how Amazon is costing communities, like ones in California, where the company has warehouses. The report, coupled with a new grass-roots coalition, show that the behemoth can no longer operate with little opposition or scrutiny. [The New York Times]

As more cities elect district attorneys like Chesa Boudin, the former public defender who was elected in San Francisco pledging wide-ranging reforms, conflicts are emerging with law enforcement officials. [The New York Times]

A brush fire in Santa Barbara County, the Cave fire, had grown to more than 3,000 acres late Monday night. [The Ventura County Star]

Also, here’s an in-depth read on how Native American tribes have used small, intentional burns to keep the land healthy for thousands of years. [The Guardian]

And, if you missed it, here’s how the outlawing of those practices has contributed to high rates of food insecurity in the Klamath River Basin — and how community members are working to change that. [The New York Times]

Navy SEALs, on bases sprinkled along the East and West Coasts, saw the imbroglio over the fate of Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, the SEAL platoon leader at the center of a high-profile war crimes case, as a harmful distraction. [The New York Times]

The Conception, the scuba diving boat where 34 people died in a catastrophic fire over Labor Day weekend, had been exempted by the U.S. Coast Guard from stricter safety rules that would have made escape easier. [The Los Angeles Times]

If you missed it, here’s what it was like aboard the Conception, according to former passengers. [The New York Times]

A report that said L.A. has more vacant homes than homeless residents was taken down after questions arose about its methodology. [LAist]

San Francisco International Airport is booming. But workers are struggling. They plan to demonstrate for better pay and benefits on Tuesday. [The San Francisco Chronicle]

Charles Schwab, the San Francisco-founded financial giant, will move its headquarters to a Dallas suburb, where it is building a massive new campus. The news came as the company announced an agreement to acquire TD Ameritrade. The Dallas area has scooped up thousands of financial services jobs, as businesses build presences outside of pricey coastal markets. [The Dallas Morning News]

Google fired four workers who were active in labor organizing. The company said they had been dismissed “for clear and repeated violations of our data security policies.” [The New York Times]

Californians helped push Nevada’s population past the 3 million mark. [The Associated Press]

Articles of faith

At the heart of debates over a weed church in Big Bear is a possibly unanswerable question: What is religion? [The New York Times]

“Nebuchadnezzar,” billed as an opera by Kanye West, has been performed at the Hollywood Bowl. The show wasn’t very operatic, a critic wrote, nor was it very good. [The New York Times]

California Today goes live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: [email protected]. Were you forwarded this email? Sign up for California Today here.

Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, graduated from U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter, @jillcowan.

California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.

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