Based on ethnographic fieldwork research of the authors in schools in Chiapas, Mexico, the article provides an overview of efforts being made to address the unique educational needs of Mexico's Indigenous populations through intercultural bilingual education programs. The article examines the Indigenous teachers' commitment to intercultural bilingual education, as opposed to their incomplete understandings of bilingual teaching practices and biliteracy practices. In so doing, the article questions the efficacy of top-down language education policies when they are State reactions to bottom-up efforts of revolutionary movements, such as the Zapatistas. Given the historical and socioeconomic oppression of the Indigenous populations in Chiapas, intercultural bilingual education acts only as a palliative, leaving the Indigenous peoples without the structural incorporation into the economic and political life of Mexico for which they struggled. (Contains 3 footnotes.)