USPS gets festive for Hispanic Heritage Month

It's a fiesta! The United States Postal Service has kicked off Hispanic Heritage Month with new festive piñatas stamps.

The stamps come in four designs – two donkeys and two seven-pointed stars – which honor the traditional Mexican fiesta favorites. Piñatas continue to be an important part of many celebrations in Mexico, including the celebration of posadas, a nine-day festival held in early December that commemorates Mary and Joseph's journey to Bethlehem before the birth of Jesus Christ.

USPS says the bright color palette was inspired by the Mexican culture, "including the vibrant colors of small-town houses, traditional hand-sewn dresses, handmade toys and flowers, and classic piñatas themselves."

Mexican artist Víctor Meléndez created the original art and designed the stamps, while Antonio Alcalá served as the art director.

"One of the reasons I feel proud to work at the Postal Service is because we are one of the nation's oldest and most admired public service institutions," said USPS chief processing and distribution officer and executive vice president Isaac Cronkhite, in a statement. "Part of that proud history is celebrating our multi-faceted heritage through stamps. Ours is truly a world culture, and our stamps allow us to weave together the many threads of our national tapestry, and piñatas are the perfect example of this."

This is the third straight year that the USPS has released stamps to honor the Latino community. In 2021, they issued Day of the Dead stamps, and in 2022, they issued mariachi stamps inspired by movie posters from the Golden Age of Mexican cinema of the 1940s and 1950s.

The piñatas stamps are being sold in booklets of 20 by USPS and can be purchased online or at any postal store across the country.