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Did you ever provide assistance to one party without the knowledge of the other?
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Nancy Ferrell
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question: Did you do anything else to deal with power disparities between groups?
Answer: This was something that I used to talk about with all the parties. The CRS mediator became
the fulcrum on this power beam, and I may need to move toward one group or another to keep
the balance. We used pre-mediation for coaching and guiding, so as to make it productive when
we did get together. This way, we had some substance there and not just emotions. I don't ever
want people to think I'm diminishing their emotions. Those are a significant part of it and they
need to be shared. But, if you're going to create systemic change, you have to go beyond that.
You need to determine where those emotions are coming from and what systems can be managed
or changed in order to create positive emotions. I may need to move closer to one group or the
other, but that's why I'm doing it. The only danger is if you don't let everybody know that you're
doing it, then one group hears about it, and thinks that you're advocating or becoming aligned
with that group. You have to be real careful that the group doesn't perceive you as an advocate,
but that they know you're coaching and helping for the purpose of everybody. You're offering
that same level of service wherever it's needed.
| Efrain Martinez
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question: Did you ever caucus or provide
assistance to only one group and not the other?
Answer: No, I don't think so.
Manuel Salinas
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question: Did you ever do things for the minority community that you
didn't tell the other side about?
Answer: Yes. Provide information, bring in a consultant, things like that. There was no reason for
the other side to know.
Question: And that didn't cause problems?
Answer: No. If it did, I was never aware of it.
| Angel Alderete
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question: Keeping in mind the power difference that you just talked about,
was there ever a time that you worked with one party without letting the other party know about
it? Where you're strictly working with one party and keeping that away from another party
involved?
Answer: To what end?
Question: To the extent of maybe you're providing some assistance that you think the subordinate party
really needs that you don't think that the superior party would take too kindly to you providing.
Answer: Well, two situations. If I had given up, if I had decided that nothing was going to happen, I
might do that.
Or if I was called in, but I wasn't called in by them and they really didn't feel that they needed to
get together with them, yeah, then we would talk about what is it we can do to hopefully get
whatever you want. But I can't really remember having to do that.
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