New Mexico Red or Green Chile Hats

New Mexico has an official state question: "Red or green?" It was proposed in 1996 and signed into law in 1999, and the in-group answer, "Christmas," means both chiles on one plate. Restaurants write it on tickets all year, not just in December. These New Mexico hats are built from that vocabulary: the state question itself, a plain Hatch chile badge, and the nickname Burque for Albuquerque. The humor here is proud, not mocking. New Mexico Magazine runs a monthly column, "One of Our 50 Is Missing," collecting stories of people who think the state is not part of the United States, and there is a hat for that. Sen. Pete Domenici defended the spelling "chile" in the 1983 Congressional record, and the correction has been repeated by New Mexicans ever since. Roasting season runs August through September, peaking around Labor Day weekend, and the smell of roasting chile was once proposed as the first official state aroma. Chile now shows up on pizza, mac and cheese, wine, beer and biscochitos, and plenty of families have hauled a freezer full of green chile out of state in the truck. Every design is custom embroidered on an unstructured dad hat. Wear one for the 505, the Land of Enchantment, or the green chile cheeseburger that tastes better at home, or give one to the New Mexican who always asks the state question first.