If you haven't already, check out perlreftut for a superb tutorial on references. In answer to your question you need to dereference what you're pushing onto e.g

my $hash = { array => [ qw( foo bar ) ] };
push @{ $hash->{array} }, qw( baz quux );
print "\$hash->{array} is: @{ $hash->{array} }\n";

__output__

$hash->{array} is: foo bar baz quux
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HTH

_________
broquaint