Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in What the Eyes Don’t See, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism and Environmental Injustice
Truth vs. Corruption
Community Values and Collective Duty
The American Dream
Family, Tradition, and Strength
Summary
Analysis
After putting the girls to sleep, Mona herself got into bed—but she spent hours awake on her iPad, reading a series of links, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports, and EPA memos that Elin had forwarded to her. Elin also sent her a note promising to do whatever she could to help out in Flint. Mona dove into articles about Miguel, Elin’s former colleague, and his leaked EPA memo. Mona was shocked—she knew that even the suspicion of lead should have been enough to get local officials to do something.
Even though Mona was horrified by the information she’d just learned, she knew she had a good friend and ally in Elin. And by reading about the work of Elin’s colleague, Miguel, Mona was showing herself that there were passionate fighters out there—people who were standing up for the citizens of Flint already.
Themes
But despite evidence of nearly 400 parts per billion, or ppb, of lead in a local woman’s drinking water, neither local nor federal officials had done anything at all. Instead, residents who complained of lead in their water were told it was their own outdated plumbing at fault—even when they had PVC or plastic pipes.
The government tried to pin the lead-water crisis in Flint on its own residents rather than taking any action to remedy the problem at all. By placing blame on an already-vulnerable constituency, the government knew it could cut off—or at the very least stall—any real resistance.
Themes
After conversations with a local Flint mother, Miguel realized that the MDEQ wasn’t using corrosion control in the water supply—a violation of federal law. In April 2015, Miguel traveled to Flint to meet with LeeAnne Walters, a Flint mother he’d been in communication with, and to take samples of the pipes leading to Walters’s house, which were made of lead.
Miguel worked tirelessly to get to the bottom of what was happening in Flint, and, along the way, he exposed some seriously corrupt and unconscionable practices. Miguel took up a duty to the community of Flint when he realized that the organizations that were supposed to protect Flint weren’t going to do their own duties.
Themes
In response to the concerns he raised, the MDEQ simply told Miguel that Flint was under a pre-flushing order—but Miguel knew that even letting the pipes run for several minutes before drinking from them wouldn’t keep people safe from lead. Miguel struggled to get anyone at the EPA or the MDEQ to verify his findings—and so he and Walters leaked them to a local reporter who broke the story in July of 2015.
This passage shows that in spite of early whistleblowers like Miguel and his contacts in Flint, the government organizations charged with overseeing the quality of Flint’s water were not going to budge easily. Mona could look to Miguel’s example of hard work and advocacy for inspiration—but she could see that many more people would need to speak up if real change was going to happen.
Themes
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The more Mona read, the angrier she became at Flint’s officials, at the federal government, and at herself for ignoring her community activists’ warnings. She’d been caught up in her own busy life—and she, like so many others, had ignored the cries of Flint’s poor, predominantly Black, inadequately represented community leaders. Mona had fallen down on her duty of being an advocate for her patients. She’d taken an oath to do no harm, but she hadn’t been there for her patients when they needed her most.
In this passage, Mona takes readers through the emotional journey she went through when she realized what was happening in Flint. By showing that she felt a personal responsibility to the people of Flint, Mona is suggesting that every member of a community is duty-bound to help their neighbors and fellow community members. Even though Mona was doing her job well and with passion, here, she realized that there was always an opportunity to make real, meaningful change rather than just scratching the surface of what was possible for her community.
Themes
Mona began reading articles and talking to Elin about the D.C. water crisis. Elin had gone to work for the EPA in 2002—just as the city found itself in a crisis after a new decontaminant, chloramine, made the city’s water pathogen-free (but highly corrosive) and began leaching toxic levels of lead into the water supply. Even the city’s sturdy copper pipes were degrading rapidly. Tests conducted by Marc Edwards, a civil engineer contracted by the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority (WASA), found over 1,000 ppb of lead in the water—a level that classified the supply as “hazardous waste.”
Mona wanted to educate herself as completely as possible about what was happening in Flint, so she turned to the examples of other water crises that had unfolded in the past. Mona was horrified to find that local and federal authorities regularly neglected doing the right thing in favor of covering up their mistakes. Mona began to realize that she would need to be the change she wanted to see in her community.
Themes
But as soon as Marc’s findings made their way back to WASA, a cover-up began. The EPA discontinued his subcontract, and many other engineers were fired. Elin herself was removed from the project after she asked questions her superiors didn’t like. Lead continued to leach its way into the water supply of the entire area. When a news story broke about the crisis in 2004, the EPA and WASA doubled down on their self-preservation tactics.
Mona could see from the articles she was reading that those who spoke out against corruption and concealment were hastily dispatched from any real positions of power—but this didn’t deter her from her mission. In fact, it made her even angrier and more committed to speaking out no matter the cost.
Themes
Marc continued his own independent research, eventually concluding that more that 42,000 children in D.C. under two years old had been exposed to lead between 2000 and 2004. But without proof, there could be no blame—and everyone involved in the crisis got off scot-free. Even the CDC claimed that lead levels in water didn’t negatively affect children’s development for years. The actual effects of the leaded water on D.C.’s children were never investigated.
Because lead poisoning is such a slow-burning phenomenon, it was difficult even for the experts involved in exposing the D.C. crisis to prove which children had suffered which effects as a result of drinking contaminated water. This, too, was a warning sign to Mona—she realized that if she was going to make change in Flint, she’d need to come up with an innovative way to definitively prove that children in Flint were suffering.
Themes
Mona had a meeting scheduled for the morning with a Genesee County Health Department employee who was in charge of lead in the county to discuss the distribution of cleaning supplies for families whose children’s lead levels were elevated. Lead exposure in children usually occurs when they ingest paint chips around old windows—but Mona told herself that whether the lead levels were high because of paint or water, she and the official would be able to figure things out the next day.
This passage shows that even after all the reading she’d just done, Mona still believed that institutions had the power—and the drive—to do what was right for their communities. Mona was counting on receiving help from a government official, but she’d soon learn that to make real progress, she’d need to strike out on her own.
Themes
As Mona tried to drift off to sleep, she couldn’t stop thinking of how to get bottled water to her patients, how to inform their parents of what was going on, and how to get her residents on the same page. But she knew she had to keep a cool head—she could have a long fight ahead of her.
Mona knew already that she needed to take things slowly and conserve her energy—the children of Flint needed her, and she had to pace herself in order to show up for them with her full support.
Themes
