SAN DIEGO — Tickets for the San Diego Padres' Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) Heritage Night are sold out, and community members say the event — and the hat that comes with it — means far more than a night at the ballpark.
At Tuesday night's game, the Padres are selling a special "MENA Heritage Night" Theme Game ticket, which includes a specially designed hat.
Organizers say it represents a meaningful step toward acceptance for the MENA community in San Diego.
Hat designer Koy Sun spent years developing his craft, drawing inspiration from cultures around the world. He poured that inspiration into the hat.
"The exciting part is studying all these different cultures and seeing similarities to my own makes the world feel a little smaller," Sun said.
Sun used a book of Egyptian movie posters as his primary inspiration and template.
"It was a doozy to do," Sun said. "I took the colors directly from this," Sun added, showing ABC 10News Anchor Jared Aarons several of the posters in the book and pointing out the Arabic lettering and font styles.
"I noticed in Arabic this shape, kind of almond shape, showed up a lot in calligraphy, lettering. So I used that as a guide to everything," Sun said.
The result is a hat layered with subtle nods to several cultures. The words "San Diego" are written in Arabic. The bottom of the brim features Syrian patterns. The baseball image on the side of the hat replaces traditional baseball stitches with Lebanese tiles. The colors are drawn from the flags of the region.
Layan Amkieh helped organize MENA Night with the Padres and runs Mazikaa Enterprises, which hosts cultural events for the MENA community. She said the hat captures something essential.
"There are so many things that unify us as people, let alone as a region and a culture. And to hold something that is testimony of it... We can represent that bond rather than speak about it. And that's what the Padres did with this hat," Amkieh said.
This isn't the first time Mazikaa Enterprises has used sports to bring the community together.
A tailgate at a San Diego FC game last season drew about 100 people. For MENA Heritage Night, organizers sold nearly 1,000 tickets before the event sold out — a sign, Amkieh said, that the community will show up where it is welcomed.
"It also sets an example to every other institution out there, sports or not, that these are third spaces where people connect and they have a responsibility to invite those people," Amkieh said.
The event comes just months after the MENA community in San Diego was shaken by a shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego. Amkieh said the gathering carries added weight as a humanizing and hopeful moment.
"We have a responsibility to make sure our people are feeling safe again. They're not in fight or flight all day. And when institutions jump in to help that recharge and that healing, the impact of it is not describable," Amkieh said.
