Simone Arroyo, an Afro-Mexican labor organizer in Seattle, travels to Harvard University to participate in a program designed to study the labor movement. It’s an honor to be invited, and Simone (who was inspired to activism in part by her grandmother, who was a “scabmugger” enforcing sex worker labor strikes decades before) has high hopes for the experience.
Almost immediately, however, things turn sour. In ways that parallel the challenges of the labor movement itself, the class is almost immediately thrown into chaos when one of the participants, Ana, is sexually harassed by one of the men, Aaron. When the program’s director decides she cannot act unless Ana names the perpetrator—something Ana is reluctant to do for fear of reprisal—Simone helps to organize a resistance within the group. As tempers flare and the group disintegrates into various factions, Simone has to deal with a harasser of her own: a man she thought to be “reasonable” and a friend.
Author Yvonne Martinez’s passion shines through each page of this short novel, and she ably communicates the struggle to organize, convince, and educate people in the face of apathy, anger, and hatred. It’s unfortunately plausible to see a group of men become tribal and menacing while the authorities do nothing and claim to be powerless. Meanwhile, Simone’s anger and intelligence make her an attractive and interesting protagonist.
However, the story in SCABMUGGERS is marred by a lack of character development. Simone herself is defined solely by her activism and her harassment experience, the “unreasonable” men never do anything but harass and insult the people they don’t like, and even Simone’s allies are vaguely defined. Without any sort of complexity to the characters, the story loses some of its punch even as it explores the challenges of navigating these kinds of situations.
Martinez also pauses the story for lengthy lectures on the history of the labor movement. On the one hand, these are interesting (and important for people to know), and the setting in a labor studies program is appropriate for these moments. On the other hand, this sort of info-dumping saps the story’s momentum. A tighter focus on the personal politics, moves, and counter-moves between the groups would have been more effective.
Still, SCABMUGGERS explores a vital aspect of modern society, its frustrations, and the people who struggle every day for justice and equality—often with no expectation or hope of reward.
Yvonne Martinez’s SCABMUGGERS is a provocative and informative story exploring the struggle of labor activists dealing with sexism and racism within their own ranks.
~Jeff Somers for IndieReader