" Basically it was a way of suckering the people into giving all the money back that they had made while they were there. A lot of the time they would work from months and at the end when it was time to get paid, they would break even, and they would leave the "finca" with almost nothing. .
The owners would abuse of them, because they were undereducated people. They couldn't speak Spanish, because Rigoberta and her people kept their native languages and customs until the present. Her people also felt that if they became educated, this education would make them change the way they felt about their customs, and they would become like the "Ladinos," greedy and evil. Due to the fact that they were undereducated and poor, they could not make a better living than that of peasant farmers. The indigenous people of Guatemala, had no way out of their oppression, and theirs was an oppression that has been going on ever since the Europeans came to the Americas. .
The reason why Rigoberta became determined to fight against these injustices all started because the large land owners were trying to take over hers", and the lands of many indigenous people that lived in Altiplano. Rigoberta's family were the leaders of the community of natives, where they lived. When the big landowners came to measure their lands for take over, Rigoberta's father fought to legally gain custody of the land. Since they were "indios" the departments that were in charge of issuing the lands, lied to them telling them that it was their land and that not to worry, but they would really give the land owners the land. This went on for years and years, with constant lies. .
Due to these lies, Rigoberta, and her family devoted their lives to stopping these large land owners from taking over what was rightfully the indigenous people's land to begin with. The large land owners became violent, when they saw that the indigenous people started to come together so that they could defend their lands.
