The Most Costly Journey is now a book!
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. Originally distributed to farm workers as individual Spanish language comic books (scroll down to check the individual stories), this collected edition brings the lives and voices–as well as the challenges and hardships–of these workers to an English-language audience, granting insight into the experiences and lives of the people vital to producing the food we eat.
Featuring a foreword by Julia Alvarez (Afterlife), introduction by Stephen R. Bissette (Swamp Thing) and preface by project founder, nurse Julia Doucet, 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 gripping work that draws together non-fiction cartooning, graphic medicine and anthropology, channeling the skills of health care practitioners, artists and ethnographers into helping alleviate the pain of others.
The Most Costly Journey is a collaboration between the Open Door Clinic, Vermont Folklife Center, UVM Extension Bridges to Health, UVM 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).
Art by Marek Bennett
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