Love, flags and flan: 2017 stamps have it all
You don’t have to be a philatelist to appreciate those miniature works of art slapped onto envelopes across the U.S.
The crop of stamps being released this year salutes everything from tamales to flowers, sharks to blossoms, and the posters produced by the Work Projects Administration during the Great Depression.
New stamps also honor President John F. Kennedy on the 100th anniversary of his birth and the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, who died only two years ago.
Hesburgh was the 35-year president of Notre Dame University, but he also served on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, reporting on racial discrimination and the denial of voting rights, work that helped prompt the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The U.S. Postal Service also commemorates civil rights with a stamp celebrating the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is the 19th museum of the Smithsonian Institutions.
Another stamp pays tribute to the Year of the Rooster, the latest in a series on the Lunar New Year, the most important holiday in Chinese culture.
And then comes “Delicioso,” featuring six Mexican, Latin American, South American and Caribbean culinary treats: tamales, flan, sancocho, empanadas, chili relleno and ceviche.
Five swimming sharks and four bouquets adorn stamp panes honoring Mother Nature, but as always with the Postal Service, patriotism makes another stand.
The new U.S. flag stamp is a closeup segment from a Tom Grill photograph of the billowing stars and stripes. And an Uncle Sam’s Hat stamp shows eight ovals of different shades, denoting America’s ethnic and racial diversity, each capped by a top hat of red, white and blue.
Love takes another bow, too, in the stamp series launched in 1973. In this year’s rendition, “Love” is written across the sky in cursive by a tiny, stylized plane.
