Rodolfo Corky Gonzales was the publisher of El Gallo newspaper, two plays: The Revolutionist, A Cross for Maclovio, and poet (Sol, Lagrimas, Sangre and Yo Soy Joaquín)

In Gonzales’ epic poem Yo Soy Joaquín/ I Am Joaquin, he shared his new cosmological vision of the "Chicano", which was neither Indian nor European, neither Mexican nor American. This new "raza" or "race" found its roots in the Pre-Columbian civilizations, which gave it indigenous rights to inhabit the ancestral land of Aztlán. 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.

Scholars have credited Gonzales with authoring this historicized, politicized definition of what it is to be a "Chicano". 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. Every little barrio newspaper from Albuquerque to Berkeley published it. People slapped mimeographed copies up on walls and telephone poles."

It was so influential that it was turned into a film by Luis Valdez's Teatro Campesino that toured nationally. It has been published internationally and has been performed by teatros internationallyIt is seen as the foundational work of the burgeoning Chicano Art Movement that 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 vehicle and the impetus.