HELLO
Marina Martinez-Bateman
They/Them
Meet the Leader
Marina Martinez-Bateman coaches, teaches, and learns at the intersection of workers rights, anti-capitalist business management, and community centered solution-making in the Pacific Northwest. They live in East Multnomah county with their family and pets.
Restorative Leadership Interview Questions:
Question 1: What helps you stay creatively courageous when the world feels threatened/like it’s on fire?
I ground myself in my ancestors, in my community and my family. It's so easy to feel isolated when you're working against fascism, against a federal government that seems monolithic and unmoving, and against a system of capitalism that is centuries old. But when I go outside into nature, I see the trees and streams and mountains that existed long before me, that will probably still stand after me, and I think of the people who came before me. My ancestors who, in their own ways, resisted subjugation and built safety and community just like I'm doing now. Being a part of local resistance and resilience work keeps me clear on who and what I do this work for. Spending time with the next generation, both of youth and of leadership, breaks the chains of isolation, and reinforces the reality that we do this together: in our families, in our communities, and across the decades and centuries.
Question 2: Describe a time when your imagination helped you move from fear into action.
I started the business that became New Coyote on January 1st, 2020. We were scaling faster than any other business I'd ever had. Clients were filling the pipeline, and I was on my way to earning my previous year's salary in the first 6 months of the year. Then COVID hit and in a week we lost everything. Even our cute little feminist-themed co-working spot shut down. And we weren't eligible for PPP loans because we had no 2019 tax return. A person would wait on hold with unemployment and assistance hotlines for a full day and never get through. Every small business group I knew was in chaos. During this time, I meditated on the flow of capital throughout the world. Every time I saw a list of local companies that got PPP, I turned my thoughts away from who got what and I began to think of the economy like one big ecosystem. If sunlight hits the tall trees, and doesn't reach the forest floor, that doesn't mean the forest dies. I began to think of every PPP loan as a win for our community. I saw the inflow of capital and I mapped where that company had outflows, not just for their own expenses, but for their employees, and their taxes, and the shops and stores on their block who wouldn't lose their lunch crowd or their dry cleaning customers.I had always believed and known that there's enough resources for everyone to thrive on this planet, but I began to live that as a matter of my own survival. And it worked. I stopped spending hours on the phone chasing the same pool of money that I was probably not going to get and I reached out to my community for support, and to find where I could support. I didn't make my previous year's salary in the first 6 months, but I did keep my income steady while working half as many hours as I had at my previous job. And I supported some really amazing community resources during a critical survival and recovery time.
Question 3: What does growth and holding space look like for you after a loss or rupture?
Recently, a very close friend I've had for nearly 30 years died. As a part of my grieving process, I wrote down everything I could remember about her. It took days. I included all of the really wonderful things about her, and I included times when there was pain or guilt between us. A significant portion of life is loss, and if we don't process our grief, we will not be able to fully understand what we gain, even in profound loss. Day-to-day ruptures are similar to the larger losses in life. They are an opportunity for learning, for practice, and for process. If something doesn't break, how will I know how to maintain it, how to make it stronger, more flexible, more functional? If I don't acknowledge what is missing or lacking, how can I find what I'm looking for? I have to hold grief in one hand and growth in the other, they need each other.
Question 4: How do you protect space for imagination in your team or community?
The two things I think we need more of in order to grow our visioning on liberation is trust and play. Both are hard to do, and I think that's on purpose. If you have a population that distrusts one another, that holds no value in play, then you have a population that will be much easier to corral, control, and exploit. Playing together can be making art, having parties, or being silly or aimless on purpose to no particular end. And when we do that, we have to trust each other to hold the vibe, to "yes and" our ideas, and to keep each other safe as well. These things make it easier to make intuitive leaps together and quickly when solutions need to come fast and be effective. Playing together makes us more effective at working together, but in order for that to work, play can't become work. It has to stay play and it has to exist in it's own right, not just as a precursor to labor.
Question 5: What rituals or practices help you (and/or your team/community) name what hurts while still holding on to what’s possible?
Naming what hurts also means listening to the hurt, and honoring that extremely valid pain. It means that timelines can change, so we build in a lot of leeway for that change to happen without pressure to skip over significant events. If we need to push a deadline, skip a meeting, or close early, we can do that. If we need to meander a little bit before we decide how to go forward, we can do that too. We also reject the pretense of professionalism that doesn't actually make us more professionally effective. When we're thinking about how to make an impact there are a lot of things that come to mind, but almost none of them are standard "professional" culture. We don't perform workiness at New Coyote, we actually do our work. And if that looks like going for a walk to think things through, attending a meeting with camera off because we're snuggled in bed with a pet, cancelling something that won't move the needle on a project because we're doing something else that will -- and this includes emotional processing -- that's what we do. And that's how we've managed to survive so much upheaval and uncertainty. The things that matter to us are solid. We will never chose between our humanity and our livelihood, because they are one in the same. And that goes a long way towards being able to navigate grief while still showing up and getting the work done to the standard that our community needs from us.