The Most Costly Journey

El Viaje más Caro

The Most Costly Journey / El Viaje Más Caro is now a book in both English and Spanish! Find the book on bookshop.org or at your local bookstore.

A 2022 Excellence in Graphic Literature finalist, a Library of Congress 2022 National Book Festival selection, and shortlisted for the Graphic Medicine Award , the anthology was selected as the VERMONT READS 2022 book of the year.

Vermont Reads is the statewide one-book reading program that brings together people over 200 Vermont towns, cities, and villages to read the same book each year and participate in a wide variety of community activities. More than 6,600 people engaged with the book, making it the most-read title in the program’s history! It’s encouraging to think these stories have reached so many people all over the state. (For teaching/discussion materials and content to engage with the book, see https://tinyurl.com/vtreads2022.)

This non-fiction comics anthology presents stories of survival and healing told by Latin American migrant farmworkers in Vermont, and drawn by New England cartoonists as part of the El Viaje Más Caro project – a health care outreach effort aimed at addressing the overlooked mental health needs of these vulnerable immigrants.

These inspiring stories grapple with issues encountered by migrant workers everywhere–isolation, separation, depression, substance abuse–even as they celebrate resilience, family, community, and the ability of each storyteller to direct their own healing narrative.

The Most Costly Journey is a collaboration between the Open Door ClinicVermont Folklife CenterUVM Extension Bridges to HealthUVM Anthropology, and Marek Bennett’s Comics Workshop.

The project was originally supported by the Vermont Community Foundation Innovations and Collaborations grant and other generous donors.

Publication of the English language book was made possible by our generous backers on Kickstarter. Read about it in ODC’s 2021 Summer Newsletter (pages 6 and 7).

The Most Costly Journey

How would you feel if your story became a book? We talked to three of the storytellers about how it felt for them.

most costly journey storytellers

Art by Marek Bennett


A Heart Split In Two - Juana, Michael Tonn
New Kind of Work - Delmar, Tillie Walden
Far From My Family - Carlos, Kane Lynch
In Your Hands - Jesus, John Carvajal
It Wasn't Our Plan - story of Ana - Glynnis Fawkes
Its Worth It - story of Gregorio - Kevin Kite
Language Is Power - story of Carlos, Bob - Ezra Veitch
Now That I Have My License - DMV - Marek Bennett
One Suffers to Provide for Family - Pablo's story - Rick Veitch
Painful to Remember - story of Jose - Marek Bennett
Something Inside / Algo Adentro - El Migrante - Marek Bennett
Suffering to Come Here - story of Rubin - Stephanie Zuppo
The Best Thing - story of Cruz family - Angela Boyle
Most Important Love of Every Woman - story of Guadalupe -Iona Fox
School of Life - story of Ponciano - Michelle Sayles
Two of Us Together - story of Alejandro, Felix - Greg Giordano
What I've Planted Here - story of Lara - Tillie Walden
You Will Be Accepted - story of Daniel - Stephanie Zuppo

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