PERSPECTIVE ON HISTORY : Stamp of Approval for Mexicanos : The ‘Legends of the West’ series celebrates 20 icons from our past, but not one is of true pioneer-- Mexican--heritage.

The controversy over the insensitive U.S. postage stamp with the atomic bomb mushroom cloud over Hiroshima is nothing new. It follows another series of stamps that is an affront to Mexican Americans and their history.

Recently, the U.S. Postal Service released a series of 20 stamps titled “Legends of the West.” Sixteen of them carry the portraits of important figures of the 19th-Century West. On the glue side of the stamps is a description of what made each one a “legend.”

Not one of those “legends” is of Mexican ancestry, as if we never existed, never settled the West, never taught the cowboys how to be cowboys, never gave thousands of cities, towns and streets their Spanish names. The exclusion was at best oblivious, at worst, racist.

There are three American Indians--Geronimo, Chief Joseph and Sagagawea--and two African Americans: Bill Pickett, who was a cowboy, rancher and rodeo showman, and Jim Beckwourth, a pioneer mountain man, fur trader and scout.

Other legends portrayed include Annie Oakley, a “dead shot” with a rifle who performed in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show, and Charles Goodnight, a Texas Ranger, “Indian fighter” and pioneer cattle rancher. Considering the reputation of the Texas Rangers, it’s interesting that he is not acknowledged as a Mexican-fighter, but “Indian fighter” says it all.

Also featured are two legends who are notorious in Mexican American history: John Fremont, who pioneered U.S. settlement of California, and frontiersman Kit Carson, another Indian-fighter who was Fremont’s scout.

It would have been very simple for those responsible to include the Mexican history of the West. There are many important Californio, Mexicano, Texano and Spanish legends who settled the West before the Yankee came along.

There was Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, the military commandant who discouraged Russian settlement of Northern California and later served the cause of California statehood.

There were Father Jose Antonio Martinez, who fought the U.S. takeover of New Mexico but ultimately served in the territorial government, and Pio Pico, the last Mexicano governor of California, later a political leader in Los Angeles.

Numerous Mexicanos fought the Yankee incursion in the Southwest. In U.S. history books, they are portrayed as outlaws. To Mexicanos and Chicanos, they are heroes--Joaquin Murrieta, Tiburcio Vasquez, Elfego Baca, Gregorio Cortez and Juan (Cheno) Cortina, to name a few.

Lucy Gonzalez Parsons is one of the most neglected women in U.S. history. Born in Texas of African and Mexican parentage, she was an important figure in the turn-of-the-century labor movement, an activist particularly for working women’s rights.

We could dismiss the exclusion of Hispanic heritage with “They’re only a postage stamps.” But it fits a pattern that bolsters the myth that Mexicanos never contributed to this country. When our children see no positive reflections of themselves in their schoolbooks, television, films and, yes, postage stamps, the message hits home. Loss of self-worth helps explain the high Latino push-out rate from our schools.

This exclusion also brings the current anti-immigration hysteria into historical focus. Many people across the country expressed outrage at anti-Proposition 187 protests where Chicano youths waved Mexican flags. Forget that these were flown with pride, and no controversy, during summer’s World Cup soccer games. They are also clear reminders that the Southwest was once Mexico and that Mexico did not leave the Southwest in 1848; it just grew in numbers and learned English. The popular saying rings true: We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us.

The Southwest is still Mexico, not politically or ideologically, mind you, but culturally, historically, traditionally and, most important, geographically. Mexicans, like other indigenous peoples, have traversed the longitude of this continent for centuries.

Political and ideological borders do exist, but culture, poverty and global economics have never respected borders.

Our exclusion from something as simple as the “Legends of the West” and our feeling that we deserve to be included in the stamp series give the lie once more to the claim that we don’t want to participate, that we don’t assimilate like “good Americans.” It’s the other way around.