[4] Gonzales convened the first-ever Chicano Youth Liberation Conference in 1968, which was poorly attended due to timing and weather conditions.

Through the Crusade for Justice, Gonzales organized the Mexican American people of Denver to fight for their cultural, political, and economic rights, leaving his mark on history.

[12] Gonzales found the sport empowering, saying, "I bleed as the vicious gloves of hunger cut my face and eyes, as I fight my way from stinking barrios to the glamour of the ring and the lights of fame or mutilated sorrow.

Gonzales's successful efforts to organize for change within the Democratic party became a crucial turning point toward Chicano Nationalist politics and the foundation of the Crusade for Justice in 1967.

Believing Chicanos could not rely on the "gringo establishment" to provide education, economic stability, or social acceptance, he sought alternatives.

When the conversation started to cross over from culture to more political issues, such as border laws, women demanded a part in the discussions, as they were directly affected just as much as the men, by the topics at hand.

Tijerina believed that the Congreso de Aztlán was doing more to separate the Mexican American vote than to unite it, and that working within the Democratic Party would provide larger success in the political world in reaching their goals.

With his poem Yo soy Joaquín, known in English as I Am Joaquin, Gonzales shared his new cosmological vision of the "Chicano", who was neither Indian nor European, neither Mexican nor American, but a combination of all the conflicting identities.

[17] This new "raza", or "race" found its roots in the Pre-Columbian civilizations, which he believed gave it rights to inhabit the ancestral land of Aztlán.

It was strengthened by conceptions such as those of José Vasconcelos, Mexico's Secretary of Education under the Revolutionary Álvaro Obregón, who proclaimed that the hope of humanity lay in the mixed "Raza Cósmica" of Latin America.

But perhaps more than anywhere else, Joaquín, the archetypical Chicano, found hope for his future in his own personal and spiritual awakening, a realization forced upon him by his status as an oppressed minority in the United States.

[20] The far-reaching effect of the poem is summed up by UC Riverside professor Juan Felipe Herrera: "Here, finally, was our collective song, and it arrived like thunder crashing down from the heavens.

[citation needed] It is seen as a foundational work of the burgeoning Chicano Art Movement that accompanied, complimented, and enhanced the Chicano Movement, and, as the Plan Espiritual de Aztlán exhorted those talented members of the community to use their abilities to advance la Causa ("the Cause"), Yo soy Joaquín provided a strong example.

A feminist analysis of Gonzales's poem reveals that women are submissive, and extensions of the men to which they are related in communal and familial ways.

Women are only discussed in relation to the suffering of Chicano males, and to serve as a support as for the epic heroes referenced in the body of the poem.

“The Crusade, originally a multi-issue, broad-based civil rights organization oriented toward nonviolence, came to symbolize Chicano self-determination and espoused a strong nationalist ideology that militant youth found extremely attractive.

Due to the growing awareness within the Chicano community of the injustices they experienced within all layers of society, many gatherings, organizations and outreach programs participated in the development of the Crusade.

[24] The Chicano movement was not strictly centered around political activism, it was about art, music, vision, pride, culture, and value of participation.

[7] Gonzales knew that the Crusade was being watched closely by the FBI and even the mafia, Chicanos were often mislabeled, and their motives and tactics were demonized by the media.

The Crusade’s goal was to bring justice, to introduce change through struggle, operating within the preset guidelines of the United States judicial system, not to start a war.

(Service-Employment-Redevelopment), an organization that focuses on the needs of Hispanics, specifically in the areas of education, training, employment, business, and economic opportunity.

Gonzales wrote to the Chairman of the Board of S.E.R., Mr. Alfredo J. Hernández: “S.E.R., is offering a gateway to a society that offers hypocrisy, sterilization, castration, and neurosis in exchange for the values of integrity that are inherent in our culture—I will not compromise my principles, my ideals and my honor to be seated at the same table with hypocrites.”[15] Dr. Ralph Guzman wrote: “This is a new era, and Mexican-Americans are activated Americans.

How well they succeed will be directly related to their own abilities to replace fragmented, weak organizations by effective political unity, to utilize ethnic identity as a root-force for progress within a larger society and to develop leadership dedicated to the fulfillment of the rising expectations of all Mexican-Americans”.

The conference emphasized themes related to the quest for identity as popularized by Gonzáles and Luis Valdez, which were “eagerly received by students searching for an ideology for the emerging student movement.”[13] Chicano youth believed that for Mexican Americans to be instilled with pride in their ethnicity and culture; Chicanos needed to reject the dominant values of American Society, including capitalism and white Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture.

Conference participants were told that previous generations of students, after completing academic programs and becoming professionals, had abdicated their responsibility to their people, to their familia de La Raza.

The result had been the psychological ‘colonization’ of Mexican American youth.”[23] The first conference in March 1969 produced a document, “Plan Espiritual de Aztlán,” which developed the concept of ethnic nationalism and self-determination in the struggle for Chicano liberation.

“Enemies and friends gathered and got along all under one roof.” Political figures, community members, militant groups, and gangs were all represented uniting under La Raza.

The conference events included political, educational, Aid Farmworkers workshops,[27] and cultural performances where big figures in the movement like Gonzales, Manuel Lopez, and the Latin Defense Organization spoke.

[26] In 1969 the “El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán” was implemented and developed designed to bring political, economic, social power of Chicano people.

One idea from the plan was to create community controlled institutions like schools, law enforcement, production of resources, development of cultural values, etc.