Hawaii Local & Pidgin Hats

Hawaiian Pidgin was born on the sugar plantations in the late 1800s and early 1900s, drawing on Hawaiian, Japanese, Cantonese, Portuguese, Ilocano and English. It is still the language of the islands' kitchens, parking lots and group chats. This page is for locals and for the large Hawaii diaspora in Las Vegas, nicknamed the Ninth Island by transplants, who miss the ocean, the surfing, the fishing, and the food. A local apparel brand, Da Pidgin, sells shirts built on this register: IYKYK, CHOKE MANINI, and IF CAN CAN IF NO CAN NO CAN, whose joke is a can-or-no-can logic that fits any invitation. This collection uses the same voice. DA KINE and BROKE DA MOUTH come straight from local speech, CHEEHOO is the spelling that already sells on embroidered Etsy caps, and PAU HANA names the hour after work. The food runs through it: SPAM MUSUBI, honored every August 8 on National SPAM Musubi Day, a date that echoes the 808 area code, and a two scoop rice and mac salad plate lunch. Plate lunch is rice, a side like macaroni salad, and a main like chicken katsu or kalua pork. SLIPPAHS and a shaka for every car that lets you in finish the set. Every design is custom embroidered on an unstructured dad hat, made for the wearer who is a member, not a tourist.