RODOLFO ‘CORKY GONZALES
IN HIS OWN WORDS

1)  “I am Joaquin,/ Lost in a world of confusion,/ Caught up in a whirl of a gringo society/ Confused by the rules.”

-I Am Joaquin, epic poem

2)  “I am Aztec Prince and Christian Christ. I shall endure! I will endure!”

– I Am Joaquin, epic poem

3) “Life in itself is a struggle and the only satisfaction we can get out of our lifetime is to be involved in creating a better world.”

– 1972 La Raza Unida Convention Speech, El Paso, Texas

4)  “Until we dared to speak, until we dared to stand up, until we dared to march, until we dared to confront everybody from the pigs to the mayors to the politocs, nothing changed…not until we said “Ya basta!.”

-July 4, 1976 Speech, Colorado Springs, CO

5)  “We will withstand the bricks, the attempts to destroy us as an organization and the futile efforts to divide us as people. WE SHALL ENDURE.”

-May 29, 1974 Letter to Rocky Mountain News

6)  “This is what we are fighting for, we’re fighting for the average individual Chicano who is being brutalized and then suppressed by the courts, sentenced. Whose rights are being violated.”

-Interview with Jesús Treviño, December 8, 1971

7)  “We should control the agencies that serve us. We should control the swimming pools, and the parks and control the recreation centers and control the schools and those churches. These [all] should be controlled by the community not by a person or organization outside of that community.”

-Interview with Jesús Treviño, December 8, 1971

8)  The philosophy of Aztlán is one of self-determination and liberation. The philosophy of Aztlán is one of unity. In our communities we realte to the total people–in the campos and the ranchitos–we are one and we relate to each other as one.”

-Documentary “Yo Soy Chicano“ 1972

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For more information about Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales see “Message to Aztlan-Selected Writings” Edited by Antonio Esquibel, Arte Público Press, Houston, Texas, 2001. See also “The Crusade For Justice: Chicano Militancy and the War on Dissent” by Ernesto B. Vigil, University of Wisconsin Press, 1999.