These Indians raise corn and beans in the highlands of central Chiapas. Their population is larger than the capacity of the land can support, yet they stubbornly remain, farming for subsistance. Recently, the Mexican Federal Government has been pushing them off their land and plundering it for the natural resources it contains. However, the Indians are as tenacious as ever. Here are some more specifics on the problem.
In response to the government's actions, the Zapatista rebel movement started. The Zapatistas say their main demands are that they want to own their own land, and that they want to be left alone on it. In the literature published on the World Wide Web, the best source for the Fields of the Tzotzil, by George Allen Collier, researches why the Indians seem to be unadaptable to the national way of life. The facts needed to answer the question of their unwillingness to leave were all in this book.
It seems to boil down to the extreme ethnic differences between the Mexican Nationals and the Indians. These Indians have a very strong sense of identity with each other and with their land. The Indians live in a very clearly delineated hierarchy of units which are distinct socially, economically, politically, and geographically, all at once. The units range from the smallest, the household up to the largest, the township. These units, at each level, are independent of each other, but internally, they are units in which everybody shares at least a cultural background, and possibly blood and wealth. See the entire page concerning the Indians' identity. Their entire identity is defined in terms of their being a part of this culture.
However, even if they could just pick up and move out, there are still factors which prevent it from working. They don't speak the national language of Mexico, for one. Even more importantly, however, farming the highlands is fundamental to this same cultural identity that binds them together as a people. Land is not only the most valuable resource to them, but their religion is all about the land, and they believe the lands they live on are sacred. Here're the specifics on that.