Jamaican & Caribbean Hats

Jamaican Americans are a community of 1,234,336 people (2022), concentrated in New York, Florida, Georgia and Connecticut, and they carry a vocabulary with them: Brooklyn's Little Jamaica and Miami's Kingston 21 are named after the island itself. This collection puts that vocabulary on a dad hat. The badges are JAMAICAN and YAAD, the Patois word for a person's home place or for Jamaica as a whole. The phrases are the ones from any glossary and any group chat: SOON COME, which means "I'll be there shortly" and has never once meant right now; WAH GWAAN, BIG UP, BLESS UP and IRIE. Two lines carry more weight. OUT OF MANY ONE PEOPLE is the national motto, adopted on 3 April 1962 and worn on the 2012 Puma Olympic kit designed with Cedella Marley. LIKKLE BUT TALLAWAH is the diaspora's shorthand for small but strong. And RICE AND PEAS EVERY SUNDAY is the table rule: the dish is cooked in coconut milk with kidney beans and eaten in Jamaican homes on Sundays, and Cassidy called it Jamaica's coat of arms in 1961. Every design is custom embroidered on an unstructured dad hat. Wear it to the cookout, give it to the cousin who is always soon coming, or keep it for the Sunday pot.