Reconnecting with Their Roots: River Coello, GED’15

In a world that so often sees things in a black-and-white binary, River Coello, GED’15, lives in the in between, an area defined by both/and instead of either/or. They are Ecuadorian and American. They are qhariwarmi, a word in the Indigenous Quechuan language of the Andes used to describe a third gender that embodies both male and female. They are an artist and a social scientist: a published poet and a researcher at nonpartisan data science organization NORC at the University of Chicago, straddling the line of the subjective and objective.

“My creative work, I see it as a different type of research,” said Coello. “Poetry, I see as internal research.”

They have published three poetry collections—2019’s self/ser, 2021’s faith/fe, and the latest, HAMPI—excavating different parts of their identity. The first two books presented their poems in both Spanish and English, but in their newest publication, they have also added Quechua, which they began learning only two years ago as part of their exploration of their Indigenous ancestry.

HAMPI was born of an intersecting set of questions about Coello’s health and their family. Researching their Indigeneity gave them answers about both, helping them to understand where they come from and where they are going.

“Personally, I was dealing with a lot of different health concerns, and modern medicine didn’t have a lot of answers. I think my soul was longing for a different type of medicine that would actually work—something that felt more holistic,” they said. “I was also so curious about my Indigenous roots, my connection to Ecuador, my family’s connection to our ancestry. … All of that converged into questions about the medicine of the past. What did it look like? And how has it changed? Why are we not in relationship to it anymore? I wanted to embrace it again—for the book, but also for myself.”

The word hampi in Quechua means “medicine.” And Coello had both physical and spiritual wounds that needed healing. They did not grow up with a connection to their Indigenous culture. They said that the legacy of colonization had erased that connection not just from their family tree, but also from their regional history in coastal Ecuador, and even their education in school.

 “When I first started this journey for myself, I felt really inadequate,” they said. “In this journey of reconnection to my roots and reconnection to my body, I didn’t know what was mine to explore versus not. I had a lot of fears and insecurities. But it was through conversations with Indigenous healers and leaders that I, slowly but surely, became more empowered.”

Though most of the poems in the new collection started life in English or Spanish, requiring Coello to painstakingly translate them into Quechua for publication, one particular work from the uturunku chapter sprung from their mind in their third language. It was inspired by a discussion in their Quechua language class in which they were sharing the meaning of their name.

“That particular poem, it’s all about reckoning with the fact that my name, Mayu, means ‘river,’” they said. “But my name also means ‘the Milky Way.’ It’s the name that the Incas used to describe the Milky Way, because it looked like a river to them. I find that so special. And so, I was able to kind of expound on that in Quechua.”

Coello’s creative output isn’t limited to poetry. They are also a performer and a sought-after public speaker and workshop facilitator. Though they wear a lot of hats, the one word that describes all their endeavors—unsurprisingly for someone who earned their master’s in Penn GSE’s higher education program—is educator.

“I think that is one of the words that I will always use to describe myself,” they said. “It’s just part of how I operate. … I see my training in higher education as very influential. I’m in adult education now, basically, creating different spaces and workshops and speeches for students and professionals about what it means to be queer and trans. All of that is very much influenced by my time at GSE.”

However, in keeping with their both/and spirit, they are not just a teacher, but also a student, as evidenced by the new language skills and Indigenous culture they learned to create HAMPI. Even the way they talk about their creative endeavors is as if each project is a new topic to understand or subject to investigate.

“With my poetry, I set myself up to look for answers and start with some exploratory questions,” they said, illustrating how the very act of creation is an act of knowledge seeking. “Then, I go and explore and take my time putting something together based on what I’ve been learning.”