The Mexican-American War

I recently read something that sparked my interest in the Mexican-American war so when I was at my local Borders bookstore in Sherman Oaks, California looked for a book about it. Finding none, I asked a salesperson. She looked on the computer and told me no, not a single one. It's gotta be something like a fifth of the land in the 48 contiguous states, including the land that this bookstore occupies, that is part of the United States because of this war and while they have shelves of books on World War II, books on individual battles of the Civil War they haven't a single book on the Mexican-American War! In fairness to Borders, I doubt that this lack is peculiar to this bookstore. I think it's just that this war occupies a miniscule part of our national consciousness. Despite it's clear relevance to the foundation of the American California, the Mexican-American war seems simply not be part of our foundation myth here. Think about it, especially those of you who, like me, went to high school in California. What do you know about the Mexican-American War? I certainly don't know much and especially didn't before some web research an hour ago. Why is this? Is it because we, the Americans, appear to be the bad guys in this one?