In "El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán," Chicano participants in the Denver Youth Conference of 1969 proclaimed: "With our heart in our hands and our hands in the soil, we declare the independence of our mestizo nation. We are a people with a bronze culture. Before the world, before all of North America, before all our brothers in the bronze continent, we are a nation, we a union of free pueblos, we are Aztlán." Not wholly unlike Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, this proclamation in some senses establishes, through decree, an independence and a unity not yet in existence. Yet unlike the United States of America which would fight a war with its colonizer, Aztlán was not preparing for actual combat. Rather, it called for nationalism and unity of its people "concerning the barrios, the pueblo, the campo, the land, the poor, the middle class, the professional - all committed to the liberation of La Raza." A strong sense of nationalism from a united people would create Aztlán, not only in words, but in the flesh. In order to strengthen the sense of Chicano identity - the "moral backbone of the movement," - the creators of this declaration of independence insist that their "writers, poets, musicians, and artists produce literature and art that is appealing to people and relates to our revolutionary culture." Creative producers would fortify this "moral backbone" which in turn would "serve as a powerful weapon to defeat the gringo dollar value system and encourage the process of love and brotherhood." Art, with its power to shape and define cultural identity, would further revolution.