The Most Costly Journey: Stories of Migrant Farmworkers in Vermont Drawn by New England Cartoonists

by Marek Bennett (Editor), Andy Kolovos (Editor), Julia Grand Doucet (Editor)

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 M�s Caro Project-a health care outreach effort of the Open Door Clinic and UVM Extension Bridges to Health aimed at addressing the overlooked mental health needs of these vulnerable immigrants. Originally distributed to farm workers as individual Spanish language comic books, 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 ethnography, channeling the skills of health care practitioners, artists and ethnographers into helping alleviate the pain of others.




EDITED BY: Marek Bennett, Julia Grand Doucet, Andy Kolovos, & Teresa Mares

FEATURED ARTISTS: Tillie Walden / Marek Bennett / Kevin Kite / Iona Fox / Kane Lynch / Teppi Zuppo / John Carvajal / Michael Tonn / Angela Boyle / Rick Veitch / Glynnis Fawkes / Greg Giordano / Ezra Veitch / Shashwat Mishra / Michelle Sayles




FOREWORD: Julia Alvarez

PREFACE: Julia Grand Doucet

INTRODUCTION: Stephen R. Bissette

AFTERWORD: Teresa Mares & Andy Kolovos




PAGES: 252 / DIMENSIONS: 5.5"x8.5"

INTERIOR: B&W / COVER: Color

BINDING: Paperback / LANGUAGE: English

PRINT ISBN: 978-0-916718-00-8

LCCN: 2021932606

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Nonfiction, Middle Grade, Adult

252 pages, Paperback

Published May 3, 2021

About the author

Cartoonist, musician, & teacher Marek Bennett lives in New Hampshire and leads COMICS WORKSHOPS for all ages throughout New England and the world beyond.

Reviews

[Susan Mills · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredibly creative book, the result of a magnificent, cooperative effort among graphic artists/cartoonists, health workers, immigrant farmworkers, translators, and others. And now a state-wide effort to find readers, to open the stories raised up to the entire Vermont community, and beyond.
As a former immigration attorney in the Providence and Boston areas, I am certainly aware of kinds of personal stories represented here, and yet immigrant life in Vermont's dairy industry comes up infrequently in those locations. While the reasons people leave their homes in Mexico and Central America and the northward trips are similar, the stories of lives here in the U.S. are very different. For those near the border, there is constant fear of the "migra." And because the overall population in Vermont is so white and English-speaking, Latino farmworkers inevitably stand out, putting them at greater risk. While many Mexican and Central American immigrants come from agricultural backgrounds, the work and environment here is nevertheless completely new to them, and so very isolating, from friends, family, community, and all the services one depends on in daily life.
Given the limitations on establishing a full U.S. life when working as a farmworker in Vermont, there must be reasons why these immigrants do not move on to a life where safety and isolation are less overwhelming. Fear of the unknown, few resources to learn about other options and make a move, lack of family and friends in other locations with larger immigrant communities -- these must play a role. Though pay on the farm is low, it seems workers can work many many hours (all year long??) -- which many immigrants want to do wherever they are -- and if they are treated well by employers, which of course they often are not, these would be factors making people stay.
This book will absolutely help people understand the immigrant experience, particularly for farmworkers. For me, it raises additional questions. Which of course only makes it a better book.
The artwork alone is varied and accomplished, making this a worthwhile read. It is clear that many people came together to make this book happen. This book will certainly play a role in humanizing immigrants to those who know little of their stories. Congratulations on work well done!

[notformebabesbooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is nothing short of phenomenal. The collection of stories are succinct enough to get the point across within a few pages, while still providing enough heart to render me speechless.

So often immigrants are overlooked or villainized, and this is exactly what this collection of cartoons tries to express and overcome. The lives of these dairy farm workers are both extraordinary and difficult, as many of them have become isolated from the world around them in order to support their families back in their home countries. I found myself simmering in feelings of bitterness, devastation, sorrow, hope, and even joy while reading this. Because despite what many of these immigrants have gone through, they continue to remain determined.

This collection of cartoons is something I’ve never seen done before, and it was done well. I feel a new kind of visibility - positive visibility - could be brought to the immigrant community here with more projects like this. Until then, I will keep reading and educating myself as much as possible.

[Aurora · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rereading because I assigned this as reading to my students in my college class. Can't recommend enough, especially for anyone doing equity work in Vermont. Starts wonderful discussions as well for groups or classes.

[Weiling · Rating 5 out of 5]

A series of comics brings to light the invisible migrant labor on Vermont farms, the major landscape responsible for retaining the idyllic tales of New England and white nostalgia. Countering documentation for sightseeing and Instagram- or Facebook-posting, comics was employed to fulfill the task of a critical ethnography of migrant workers mainly from Mexico and Guatemala and the untold and unseen stories of border crossing.

For migrants paying a high fee to be transported by coyotes, the week or so leading toward the US-Mexico border is full of death threats already—rattlesnakes, poisonous spiders, lack of sleep and sanitation, continuous change of vehicles, on top of an extreme degree of fear of police ambush on the ground and in the air. Such is a widely experienced life-and-death journey that Aaron Bobrow-Strain captures in Aida Hernandez’s breathtaking border story. But to make a living with limited English while constantly dodging the ICE radar is no easy task.

As a result, unprotected visibility can expose the farm workers to various irrevocable risks ranging from job loss to deportation. Their vulnerability to systematic discriminations and punishments requires that researchers and their artist partners adopt research methods and tools that guarantee both confidentiality and a high level of translingual accuracy. Equally important is the return of educational benefits to those interviewed, in this case, through the University of Vermont’s Bridges to Health Program.

Inspired by graphic medicine and the emerging trend of visual anthropology, the editors of this book adopted ethnographic cartooning as a medium that fuses pictures with words in a way that enhances the researchers' sensitivity of the usually unseen sequence of power dynamic flowing in a given site. The adoption of ethnographic cartooning effectively obscures the identifiable characteristics of the workers and the farms they work on without compromising the quality of storytelling. The production of the comics, as a means of visual literacy, serves popular education to both the migrant communities and the broader public.

As someone who lives in Burlington and teaches at a college gravitated toward game design and visual art, THE MOST COSTLY JOURNEY offers a priceless pedagogical example of critical graphic ethnography. The absence of taco trucks on the street and the number of Mexican wage workers in the thousands only make sense when the dominant culture demands, however overtly, that the pastoral idealism not be disrupted by Brown peoples. But if there has to be a place for taco trucks, it is no other than the bougie hipster Saturday farmers market or the neoliberal Church Street Marketplace, where one taco sends $4 or more to a white vendor's pocket. In these places, the eye (of human and the camera alike) is tricked to see a nearly all-white labor force and the mind is dissuaded to forge inquiries about what is beneath. The goal of teaching, then, is to see more and to know, with a trained sense of reflexive skepticism, that there is always more to see.

[Erin Kelley]

I'm really glad that this book was broken up into short stories because it was at times very difficult to read, for obvious reasons. I was really struck by how similar all of the stories felt in a lot of ways while still showing vastly different experiences of the migrant experience. I would certainly recommend it to Vermonters and North Americans more broadly. One really valuable thing that I learned from the forward is that many migrants actually don't speak Spanish as their first language, they speak an indigenous language instead and therefore may not be able to really read in Spanish. I will say a concern that I had was that this might not be fully accessible in the way it was meant to be as some of the stories felt like mostly text with the art almost fading into the background but it was also proof read so that might be a reflection of the kinds of comics that I usually read.

I had somewhat mixed feelings about the art - as is bound to happen with graphic anthologies. I also felt more touched by some stories than others but I know that that was influenced by the art as well. There was one story where the art was particularly detailed but with the size of the printing it was almost a bit muddy.

I think that my favorite part of this book was the story where the actual painting and art of the storyteller were included within the comic. I thought that was a lovely touch. I know a lot of people who work with migrant farm workers but not a lot of migrant farm workers and it makes me want to learn Spanish so that in the future I can connect with people who are so clearly such an integral part of my community.

[J.T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much like the collection of stories of undocumented immigrants from the Voice of Witness book series, The Most Costly Journey's power is in the harrowing tales of pain and fear (and hope) voiced by a variety of transplants living in America. Reading through several experiences of risking their lives to sneak across the border in hopes of a better life, it hits home how bad life must be in the authors' homelands. Those who make it to Vermont end up working long days of physical labor, often without their families for support or relief. Undocumented immigrants that do the labor native Americans are unwilling to do it in order to support their families back home or in the hopes of removing those families from danger and/or poverty.

I'm willing to bet most of us already know most of this, but to hear it told plainly from the people experiencing it directly is powerful. Reading the afterword, I learned that these stories, recorded and presented in conjunction with New England cartoonists, are primarily for the benefit of the migrant farmworker community itself. Latin American culture does not encourage therapy, so telling and reading these stories serves as a form of therapy. Voicing their struggles provides relief, and reading of others' similar struggles encourages community and feeling less alone.

I commend the storytellers, the editors, and the cartoonists for putting this collection together. There is an untranslated version in Spanish as well.

[Kelsey Dangelo-Worth · Rating 5 out of 5]

An anthology of stories of migrant farmers’ experiences coming to Vermont (mostly dairy farms), and the pain of loneliness, fear, isolation, and separation from their families, doing the incredibly difficult and low-paying jobs no one wants to do, making our food and sustaining our agricultural economy. This collection tells their stories in their own words, through graphic representation. The audience is their own community, with the hope of being a mental health resource, but it also serves to educate the public.
This was absolutely a treasure of a book. As a Vermonter, I know that migrant workers are both visible and invisible. In a small state that is mostly white, but also progressive with social services and goals of equity, we can feel helpless and guilty about the farm workers who feed us and sustain our economy. Literature (part that which gives real voice to the voiceless) can be a powerful force for change, illuminate, inform, educate, and heal. It can also make a problem that seems too big, perhaps solvable. There’s always something powerful about reading the voices in your own community. Living in a small state, that doesn’t happen enough. This is a treasure for an educator, too, with so much about voice, style, pacing, character/biography.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really important read, especially for Vermonters. This was full of emotional stories about the struggles migrants (the vast majority of whom are undocumented) face getting to and then living and working in Vermont. I loved the format as a series of comics by different VT artists. It also had a powerful introduction as well as afterword in non-comic form. Grateful that Vermont Reads chose this as this year's book.
Would love to see more works like this. What about the experiences of immigrants for countries other than Mexico? We have a small Syrian and Middle Eastern population here, or (due to personal connections) the Phillippines? What is life like here for them? Would they want to tell their stories? Would it help them as well? What other resources can our state provide to migrant workers to make their lives better here as they work backbreaking hours in jobs that most Vermonters wouldn't do?

[Stephen Kiernan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is utterly unique and essential.

Through a series of vignettes, provided by migrant Mexican workers on the dairy farms of Vermont, and rendered in graphic novel form by New England cartoonists, it is a vivid and moving account of what life is actually like for the people who milk the cows today.

The social isolation, the discrimination, the exploitation -- it's all there. So is the determination, the generosity, the hopefulness.

The graphic style has a disarming effect, its simplicity conveying a level of vulnerability. But the issues in this book are plenty complex, and compelling, and offer no easy solutions. The drawings maintain respect rather than appropriation.

Highly recommend this book for Vermonters, and anyone living in a state whose economy relies on migrant workers -- which is to say, almost anywhere in America.

[Keeley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating, educational, and intense introduction to the perspective of migrant farmworkers in Vermont, told by the workers in collaboration with cartoonists. The stories cover a wide range of issues and, as they emerged from a public health project, many of the stories feature words of hope or advice for others experiencing the same struggles.
My one criticism of the book has to do with the extreme disconnect between the accessible tone of the stories and the alienating, academic tone of the introductions (plural) and conclusion. At the very least, put the dense material at the back and limit the introduction; perhaps even couch the intro in the tone and medium of comics to draw in the readers you are trying to reach.

[Jane Sweatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am very glad I read this book presented by Vermont Reads!!! Yeah for Vermont! It is an in your face graphic novel about the journeys of migrant workers from their homes/countries to Vermont. The many hardships they face in transit as well as in the beginnings of their resettling in Vermont. Their stories are so real, sad, revealing and incredibly important to know about. Many thanks to Vermont Reads for choosing this book and for the libraries who do the work to have it as a reading choice. Thank you Kate Schaal and the Quechee Library.
Read it please!
J.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exceptional. A truly wonderful, compassionate, community-driven project that gives a voice to those that haven't had the opportunity--thanks to language barriers or fear of detection--to use it. Honestly, this should be required reading for everyone. And if I had to guess...this will surely end up on a banned book list in Florida, Texas and wherever Republican delusional ideals run rampant. So go find yourself a copy!

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you." -Maya Angelou

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't mean to rate this unfairly with 4 stars, but I don't love graphic novels/books. However, it was valuable to read and view the stories of migrant farmworkers in Vermont. It's clear that these individuals work incredibly hard and that many of their lives are filled with fear and loneliness as well. It also seems clear that the farms depend on these workers and, like everyone, they should be treated respectfully.

[Rebecca Sofferman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the Vermont Reads book of the year and wow what a fantastic choice! I gained so much perspective of the experiences of undocumented farm workers in Vermont through this book. A lot of talent, courage, and love went into creating this book. I am really looking forward to working with some teachers in my building using this book. Because it is a series of comics, there are many options for having students explore creating their own personal narratives. Highly recommended.

[Van · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this book. It's beautifully done. I also was fascinated by the intro and epilogue, which talked about the collaborative process of the migrants sharing their stories, the cartoonists drafting them on paper, with continued feedback and back-and-forth from the storyteller. I've read and enjoyed journalistic comics but this is something unique. I feel that the cartoon format is underutilized for storytelling of this kind and I would love to see more of it.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a truly moving and fascinating book...an anthology of stories that are at best sad and frustrating and at worst heartbreaking. I'm not a big graphic novel reader and sometimes the art is wasted on me, but I'm so glad I had the opportunity to hear these stories and raise my own awareness about a population that is too frequently invisible in my little state.

[Jeanie Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must-read! A collection of comics illustrating first-person accounts from migrant farmworkers in Vermont - it serves as a counter-narrative to the anti-immigrant propaganda rife in the media. I really appreciated the diversity of the stories (and the artists!) and I can't wait to see this book read and used in classrooms around Vermont. Great choice - Vermont Reads!!!

[Lisa Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for all Americans. Our food supply does not make it to our tables without them, and yet we force them to be invisible. Why they come here, why they stay, who they left behind, how hard they work, how they survive, and sometimes,… find ways to thrive. #migrantjustice #VermontReads #vermonthumanities #betheluniversity

[Ywein · Rating 5 out of 5]

A moving and insightful collection of short comics about the experiences of migrant farmworkers in the dairy industry in Vermont. Developed through the collaboration between cartoonists, migrants, translators, academics, and activists, the collection explores experiences of grief, loss, (dis)connection, family, love, and duty. This book was heartbreaking to read, shining a light on the abhorrent conditions experienced by migrant workers and the sacrifice they make to work in the USA. Well worth a read for anyone interested in learning more about migration and rural America. I appreciated the final chapter of the book that explores the methodology, theoretical background, and ethical dilemmas involved in the book’s production. I would be very interested in reading a follow up book that continues the stories of the migrants featured in the collection.

[Rod · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un ejemplo magistral de la riqueza que pueden lograr los cómics cuando están elaborados con el objetivo de no solamente entretener sino de difundir situaciones trascendentes de vida. 19 relatos de migrantes plasmados en cómics cortos. Una joya

[Marie DiCocco · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book should be required reading for everyone. While it focuses on the dairy farm migrant workers in Vermont, I'm sure the stories & experiences would apply to just about every migrant that crosses our borders.

[Stan Dueck · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories of immigrant workers to Vermont, told in cartoon format. Published in 2021, this story collection is intensely thought-provoking, especially given the current immigration climate in the US.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Young Adult “graphic novel”
A collection of stories that builds empathy, compassion and understanding for the important people who work on VT farms……

[Emmi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous, eye-opening book. Everyone who thinks they know Vermont should read this.

[Dea Devlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really sad and eye opening to the trauma faced by migrant farmworkers in Vermont.

[Suz · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would have liked a deeper dive into many of these stories.

[Gretchen · Rating 4 out of 5]

migrant justice slay !!

[Jan-Ives Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

wonderfully illustrated stories of migrant workers in Vermont, written and drawn to demonstrate the plight and importance of foreign workers in our communities

[Erika Monaghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an incredible collection of first person stories. Heartbreaking but also hopeful. I’ve seen this book in our schools and never read all the stories. Love the accessibility with the comics.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

New appreciation for what goes on behind the scenes in the diary industry unlocked!