Then the Pushcart King, Maxie Hammerman, says he will explain based on a lot of thinking. He is demonstrating the leadership role of taking a big-picture view of the situation and considering the opposing interests and strategies at work, then synthesizing and communicating.
He explains the strategy against them: the trucks are making the city unlivable, so "they have to find somebody else to blame". They chose pushcarts because pushcarts are few and *seem fewer than they are*
Sound familiar?
The pushcarts seem fewer than they are because they stick to their own neighborhoods, we can think of parallels with minority groups that seem fewer than they are to the majority because they stay in their own neighborhoods (where the majority don't go) but also of groups that seem fewer than they are because it's dangerous to be who they are.
One peddler points out that even if the trucks kill all the pushcarts, that won't solve the traffic problem that is making people angry at the trucks.
Maxie Hammerman responds: "So then they will have to find someone else to blame."
Sound familiar?
Okay, but the pushcart peddlers do not want to all be killed. So they decide to fight. Notably (and despite the title of "Pushcart King") they decide this by a vote - a contrast to the trucker meeting, where the bosses claim to be acting on input from the employees but do not ask for it publicly, and announce plans that they do not explain in detail.
The pushcarts have decided to fight, now they have to figure out how. Some are fine with causing physical harm to the truck drivers, but there are challenges and risks to every method they think of, and others don't want to hurt any people at all, including truck drivers.
The idea of how to fight comes from Carlos, who almost never speaks up in meetings. In Ch 11, we learn that Carlos is a great carton-flattener, and what that means; only after learning about his job, we learn that the reason he doesn't speak up much is that he only speaks Spanish.
A lot of the pushcart peddlers have Eastern European and particularly Jewish-associated names, and the illustrations reflect this (recall that the illustrator was the author's partner). And now there's Carlos, who only speaks Spanish. The Pushcart King translates for him, because "Maxie Hammerman spoke Spanish and twelve other languages. He had to, being the Pushcart King."
"Maxie Hammerman spoke Spanish and twelve other languages. He had to, being the Pushcart King."
So this is a fairly diverse community, at least linguistically. But it is important to note here that there are no characters identified as Black or Asian in this book.
Carlos, in translation, says something important. While other peddlers have been focused on "fighting", Carlos points out "that the problem is to make people see who *is* blocking the streets." This is absolutely a physical war, but it is also a battle of perception & narrative.
The insight is not to look for something that will hurt the truckers, but to look for something that will hurt their propaganda. And Carlos has the answer, which he got from his son. Note how often kids have important roles in this book, even though they are not main characters - Carlos's son, the boy who took the photo documenting the violence, and more later.
(They are mostly though not all boys - more on that later too). These are realistic, and important, roles for kids to play in this struggle.
The idea is a pea-shooter, with pins stuck through the peas. A peddler asks if they will shoot the truck drivers, but "It is Carlos' belief that even truck drivers are people." <- ANTI-FASCIST REFUSAL TO DEHUMANIZE THE ENEMY! "He has told his little boy that he must never shoot at people, and he does not wish to set a bad example." <-another example of respecting children.
The pea-pins are to be used instead to shoot at the tires, immobilizing the trucks and *showing everyone who is really blocking the streets*. The peddlers (mostly) love this idea, but the other important thing from this chapter is the question of how to pay for peas and pins.
Protest actions have costs - also contrast this to the truck companies funding a weekly paper they give away for free. But Maxie Hammerman has the solution here: he reaches out to a movie star -the "influencer" I mentioned from Chapter 7- who had expressed her anti-truck opinion. Allies.
Chapter 12, the start of the pea-shooter campaign, is pretty great and I don't want to ruin it for people, so I'm going to (TRY to) pull back a little and just draw out a few key insights.
The pea-shooters remind me of something I heard from
protest historian L.A. Kauffman about the value of protest actions being playful or humorous. This also helps for the pacifist pushcart peddlers who struggle with the idea of harming even a tire, but quickly start having fun.
And while this action is fun for the peddlers, it is incredibly frustrating for the truck drivers, leading them to act worse and worse, which contributes to the puncturing of their propaganda.
In Chapter 13 we get Maxie Hammerman's version of dataviz: a map of the city with red and gold pea-pins marking hits on trucks. "Although Maxie had not left his shop all day, he had the clearest picture of the battle" <- importance of different roles
He uses this to deploy resources strategically: while the peddlers all started in their usual vending areas, when they come in from ammunition he can send them to unblocked streets.
The chapter ends with some terrible sexism about how women can't shoot pea-shooters accurately, only slightly mitigated by the woman in question leveraging stereotypes ("Who would suspect an old lady") and the excellent motto "By Hand"
To Be Continued! Just realized I should hashtag this thread too:
#ThePushcartWarAlso, my new book THE MIMICKING OF KNOWN SUCCESSES comes out tomorrow!!! It is fun and genre-bending and getting great reviews, please ask your fave indie bookstore and/or library for a copy!
Sorry for the long break [it's release week!!! *squeeeeeee*] In Chapter 14 we see the reaction to the pea-pin campaign, which mostly emphasizes again the value of a stealth attack: the truckers are confused, and in their confusion score some own goals.
There's also a warning about not pea-shooting non-trucks (because a particularly avid peddler zings a woman who "insulted his sauerkraut.") "That will only make trouble," says General Anna.
#ThePushcartWarThat's perhaps a risk to the "make it fun" approach to protesting; it can be easy to get caught up in the fun, like Harry the Hot Dog does, and forget to keep the action focused on its goals.
There's also this interesting observation: "What most infuriated the truck drivers was that no one seemed to feel sorry for them." That conveys again the victim mentality of the truckers. Their relative power, and threat, has been implicit for some time; the pushcart action makes it explicit, and so the people of the city, though inconvenienced, are generally in favor.
"the fact that the trucks themselves were the most inconvenienced by this new development seemed to cheer people, and they did not complain too much."
#ThePushcartWar #CollectiveActionThen in Chapter 15, Frank the Flower gets arrested for shooting a truck tire.
(giving you all a moment to absorb this shocking news)
Frank becomes a hero by admitting to all 19,000 or so flat tires that the Police Commissioner is aware of. He manages to avoid harsh treatment by portraying himself as (I quote) "a crackpot" (not a strategy advisable today)
The peddlers (hearing the news in newspaper extra editions and on the radio) immediately gather to discuss. They realize Frank is taking the blame to save them. Some want to give themselves up; some want to avenge him with more tires. But they quickly realize that either of those will undermine his sacrifice: they need to continue the fight, and they need to do it differently, now that the cops are on the look out for pea-shooters.
Chapter 16 gives us a couple of lessons about politics, power, and influence. 1st, the truck co. owner Big Moe disagrees with the Police Commissioner accepting F-the-F's statement, and he does it publicly which makes the Police Commissioner double down
#PushcartWarHe does this by telling Big Moe to go sit on a pea-tack, another kid favorite moment.
Instead of following his advice, Big Moe calls the mayor. And here we learn that after the "peanut butter speech" equating big trucks with big business and big business with progress AND winning the mayor's re-election, the truck companies each gave the mayor 1000 shares of stock "as a token of appreciation."
"With all these tokens, the Mayor could not help having a real interest in the trucking business." *glares at lobbyists, all lobbyists*
So the Mayor takes Big Moe's call and passes on his "friendly suggestion" for a pea-tack squad to the Police Commissioner, who has to do it. Fortunately the pushcarts locked down their pea-shooting hard so pea-tack squad finds nothing. But...
There are new outbreaks of flat tires! In three different sections of the city! dun dun DUN!
In Chapter 17 we learn that kids have taken up the pea-shooting campaign, to devastating effect. A few things here:
1. "Fun" forms of protest spread.
2. Fortunately in this case, some of the discipline carried over: the kids ONLY shoot at truck tires.
3. We see the peddler with the best record, the one who darted a woman because she insulted his sauerkraut, being protective of the tactic. He doesn't want the kids involved because they were making it "a joke" - a great example of resistance, in a tight group, to new allies. Fortunately the other peddlers are fully appreciative of the kids and talk him down.
4. Another example of kids being active and powerful! All with a kind of sly humor. It's noted that even kids "too strictly brought up" to use a pea-shooter help the cause by just hanging around trucks and making them nervous.
A lot of the chapter is about the "Frank-the-Flower Clubs" that spring up among the kids, and it's just brilliant and funny fictional ethnography of the subcultures that arise sometimes in the wake of protest
And those subcultures become cool, because they're semi-secret, and that has reverberations up into very official and uncool arenas.
In chapter 18 the trucks, unable to manage the attrition caused by children with pea-tack shooters, temporarily retreat and "It was like a holiday"
#ThePushcartWar
older
azteclady has moved