Aztlán

The Denver Meeting

The importance of Aztlán to the civil rights and identity struggles of Mexican Americans crystallized in March 1969 in Denver, Colorado, where Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales convened the First National Youth and Liberation Conference. Gonzales had become the ideological leader for many Chicano youth with the publication of his epic and critical poem, Yo Soy Joaquin. Approximately 1,500 young people from throughout the United States attended the conference held at the headquarters of Gonzales's political organization, the Crusade for Justice, to discuss common issues of social injustice and racial discrimination experienced by a wide array of youth in their communities. After much debate and discussion, the conference formulated a philosophy of cultural nationalism, calling for all Mexican Americans to unite under the banner of the term Chicano and calling for self-determination in all spheres of life.

Most important, the participants embraced the concept of Aztlán to situate their program. By referencing their social and political identity in relation to the indigenous homeland of the Mexica empire, which became subjected to Spanish and (later) American expansion, Aztlán provided an image by which Chicanos/as could resolve the racial tensions of their mestizo multiracial and multicultural identities. Simply, it was an effort to reject whiteness and the long-standing ethnocentric view in the Mexican American community; beyond that, being indigenous meant being less than European or American.

All of these sentiments were captured in a document drafted by the conference participants—El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán. The Chicano poet Alurista penned the Preamble to this Mexican American Declaration of

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