‘The “First Lady of Tejano music” has a new home: on a forever stamp.
Lydia Mendoza is the first musician to be immortalized in the U.S. Postal Service’s newest Music Icons series, LatinaLista reported.
Mendoza, who died at the age of 91 in 2007, recorded more than 1,000 songs during a career that spanned seven decades.
“Mendoza was a true American pioneer, whose unique voice and style of singing, paved the way for a whole new generation of Latino performers. Her impact on music guarantees her place in American music history, and today her legacy continues on 30 million postage stamps,” said Marie Therese Dominguez, Vice President of Government Relations and Public Policy.
According to the postal service, Mendoza “gave a voice not only to the poor and working-class people North and South of the border, but also to Latinos throughout the Western Hemisphere.”
She received the National Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1982 and was inducted into the Tejano Music Hall of Fame. Mendoza suffered from a stroke in 1988 and subsequently retired from music.
The stamp features a black-and-white photo of Mendoza with a superimposed image of the flag of Texas. It is meant to look like a 45-rpm record sleeve and was designed by Neal Ashy and Patrick Donohue, along with art director Antonio Alcalá.
Mendoza’s stamp was recently unveiled to postal service dignitaries, family members, friends and musicians at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio, Texas.
