USPS Lowriders Forever Postage Stamps Sheet of 15 - Mexican American Culture

• Celebrate a culture that originated in the working-class Mexican American/Chicano communities throughout the American Southwest with the Lowriders Forever stamps. Available in sheets of 15, these stamps showcase 5 dazzling car models.
• The Lowriders Forever stamps feature photographs of 5 stunning lowrider models: a blue 1958 Impala named Eight Figures; an orange 1964 Impala named The Golden Rose; a green 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme named Pocket Change; a blue 1946 Fleetline named Let the Good Times Roll/Soy Como Soy; and a red 1963 Impala named El Rey.
• Forever Stamp: Always valid for the rate of sending one ounce of mail, regardless of future rate increases.
• Sheet of 15: Provides enough stamps for multiple mailings.
• Self-Adhesive: Easy to use, simply peel and stick.
• Made in the USA: High-quality, detailed stamp artwork made and printed domestically.
• The Lowriders stamp is being issued as a Forever stamp. This Forever stamp will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail one-ounce rate.

Low and slow: that’s the lowrider car. When moving, it appears to glide over the road surface, only to levitate suddenly and bounce up and down. These stamps celebrate the lowrider culture rooted in 1940s-era working-class Mexican American/Chicano communities of the American Southwest — a culture of artistically and mechanically customized cars now honored at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and emulated by lowrider clubs in other countries.

Eager to show different lowrider styles, vintages, and colors on these stamps, USPS Art Director Antonio Alcalá found that photography would best capture the essence of lowrider culture. “Photography helps honor the hard work that goes into the creation of each car,” he explains. “Using illustrations would possibly be more about the artist’s imagination than about actual lowriders.”

These stamps feature photographs by Philip Gordon of Let the Good Times Roll/Soy Como Soy, a blue 1946 Fleetline; and Pocket Change, a green 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme; and photographs by Humberto “Beto” Mendoza of Eight Figures, a blue 1958 Impala; The Golden Rose, an orange 1964 Impala; and El Rey, a red 1963 Impala.

At its most spectacular, a lowrider car might boast a colorful paint job and a luxurious interior featuring, for example, crushed velvet upholstery and a seven-inch welded-chain steering wheel. To show the cars in as much detail as possible, Alcalá made these stamps one-third wider than the usual commemorative size. Other design elements pay further tribute to lowrider culture: The Gothic-style typography suggests the shiny chrome lettering found on many cars to show their affiliation with a particular club. Danny Alvarado’s custom pinstriping in the corner of each stamp and on the selvage evokes the detailed decoration on the most celebrated lowriders.

“Lowrider cars represent a great deal of pride on the parts of the owners, the painters, and detailers, and the car clubs,” Alcalá says, acknowledging the responsibility he felt to do justice to a culture that came into its own in the 1970s — and is still going strong.