Stamp collecting reached a zenith of popularity in Cuba and the United States about the same time: 1950s and 1960s. As Cuba’s revolutionary state adopted communism, government organizations charged with ideologically educating citizens heavily promoted the hobby as a methodical, non-lucrative and meditative way to broaden one’s consciousness. Although these examples from the vast collection of María Ana Abreu Hernández reflect the Communist government’s efforts to depict and promote specific ideals, Abreu Hernández was herself anything but a loyalist: a graduate of the University of Havana, she had worked as a registered nurse before fleeing Cuba with her husband, famed photojournalist Eduardo “Guayo” Hernández in late 1960. From exile, Abreu Hernández earned her nursing credentials once again and managed to collect thousands of stamps, mostly from the mail she and her circle of fellow exiles received from the island. While these stamps tell their own official stories, they also reveal the tenacity of a Cuban woman’s love for her country and desire to document its historical experience, however painful or ironic it must have seemed. Eduardo “Guayo” Hernández Collection, Smathers Libraries, University of Florida
