Polish-American Hats

Polish-American identity runs on food, family and a good-natured fight with spelling. The Odyssey's list of signs you grew up Polish includes the babcia who sees you as naked no matter what you are wearing, the slippers you wore indoors to avoid some ridiculous disease, and the last name everyone mispronounces. These hats wear that shared knowledge in the open. The calendar gives it a stage. Paczki Day is Shrove or Fat Tuesday, and paczki translates to little packages, a way of emptying the pantry of rich ingredients before Lent. Chicago celebrates both Fat Thursday and Fat Tuesday, and Hamtramck holds an annual Paczki Day Parade. Dyngus Day, the Monday after Easter, brings water splashing and pussy-willow whipping, and Buffalo has celebrated it since at least the 1873 St. Stanislaus Church. Kiss Me I'm Polish pins and shirts have been sold since the 1960s as Polish-American pride grew. The badges here name the country, the grandmother, the dumpling and the toast. The sentence designs carry the in-group jokes: pierogi is already plural, and a Polish last name needs more vowels. Polish Princess is a phrase already on Walmart shirt listings, and it earns an arch here. Every design is custom embroidered on an unstructured dad hat. Pick one for your own Rust Belt pride, or give it to the person who still calls their grandmother babcia.