In March of 1969, Chicano activists gathered at the Youth and Liberation Conference in Denver, Colorado and drafted the Program for El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán. Alurista, a Chicano poet from San Diego, California, wrote the following Preamble to the Plan Espiritual de Aztlán.

PREAMBLE TO THE PLAN ESPIRITUAL DE AZTLÁN

In the spirit of a new people that is conscious not only of its proud historical heritage, but also of the brutal "Gringo" invasion of our territories, we, the Chicano inhabitants and civilizers of the northern land of Aztlán, from whence came our forefathers, reclaiming the land of their birth and consecrating the determination of our people of the sun, declare that the call of our blood is our power, our responsibility and our inevitable destiny.

We are free and sovereign to determine those tasks which are justly called for by our house, our land, the sweat of our brows and by our hearts. Aztlán belongs to those that plant the seeds, water the fields and gather the crops, and not to foreign Europeans. We do not recognize capricious frontiers on the Bronze Continent.

Brotherhood unites us, and love of our brothers makes us a people whose time has come and who struggles against the foreigner “Gabacho” who exploits our riches and destroys our culture. With our hearts in our hands and our hands in the soil, we declare the independence of our Mestizo nation. We are a Bronze People with a Bronze Culture. Before the world, before all of North America, before our brothers in the Bronze Continent, We are a Nation of free pueblos, we are Aztlán.

March , 1969