USPS stamps lowrider legacy in San Diego
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The 15-stamp sheet features five classic cars. Image: Courtesy of USPS
Lowriders are rolling onto U.S. mail as the Postal Service launched a stamp collection honoring the artistry and tradition of Chicano culture.
Why it matters: Putting lowriders on U.S. postage elevates a tradition born in Mexican American neighborhoods to a national audience.
What they're saying: The USPS stamp program honors "things that represent the best of our nation," USPS spokesperson Albert Ruiz tells Axios.
- "And our new Lowriders stamps continue that proud tradition of celebration and inclusion," he says.
Driving the news: USPS launched the collection at Logan Heights Library on Friday, which San Diego city leaders proclaimed as Lowrider Day.
- Antonio Alcalá, an art director for USPS, designed the five Lowriders Forever stamps using photographs by Beto Mendoza and Philip Gordon.
- The 15 Forever Stamp sheet is $11.70 and available nationwide.
The cars featured on the stamps:
- A 1958 Chevrolet Impala, "Eight Figures"
- A 1964 Chevrolet Impala, "The Golden Rose"
- A 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, "Pocket Change"
- A Chevrolet Fleetline, "Let the Good Times Roll/Soy Como Soy"
- A 1963 Chevrolet Impala, "El Rey"
Between the lines: Lowrider culture started in Los Angeles in the 1940s and is now embedded in generations of Latinos across the U.S. It's a bouncy, glittering expression of craftsmanship, resistance, tradition and community.
- "I'm really proud that we're finally getting our flowers, because everybody looked at us like gang bangers and drug dealers," Mendoza, a California-based photographer, tells Axios. "We're family men, it's generational, it's a family thing — that's one thing people don't understand … we look out for each other."
Zoom in: Local professor Alberto López Pulido, founding chair of the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of San Diego, helped USPS choose Logan Heights to host the ceremony because of the community's cultural and historical significance.
- His archive for San Diego's lowrider legacy features photographs, car club meeting minutes and news articles from the 1950s through today. He also produced a documentary and wrote a book about lowriding in San Diego.
- Lowriding and cruising flourished through the 1970s, with Highland Avenue in National City as "the mecca" of the scene, he wrote in the Union-Tribune in 2021.
- But legal crackdowns and bans, which have raised concerns they were racially motivated or based on negative stereotypes, restricted the cultural expression until a few years ago.
Catch up quick: National City reversed its own cruising ban in 2023, an effort led by the United Lowrider Coalition that evolved into a state law.
- Lowrider cruising became officially legal in San Diego and across California in 2024. The law overturned decades-old local bans, prohibiting cities from restricting "low and slow" driving or targeting customized, low-riding vehicles.
What's next: See some of the West Coast's finest lowriders in action at the 25th Meguiar's Del Mar Nationals car show in April.