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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
Later in the evening, Elin told Mona that she’d seen a memo written by one of her former colleagues, Miguel Del Toral, who worked in the Chicago office of the EPA. He’d done an independent test of the Flint water supply months ago and found that the city was not using corrosion control. Because water is naturally corrosive, water systems are supposed to treat the water to reduce its corrosivity.
This passage illustrates the fact that people all across the country were beginning to see that there was a problem in Flint—and that Flint’s local government wasn’t going to do anything to solve the issue. Experts were realizing that Flint’s government had skipped over essential, basic steps when switching the water source. This was tantamount to neglect.
Themes
Elin cited the D.C. water crisis as an example, but Mona was confused—she’d never heard of a water crisis in D.C. Before she could ask about it, though, Elin explained that the water in Flint was corroding the city’s pipes—and most of the plumbing in Flint was made of lead. Based on Miguel’s memo, Elin said sadly, the lead levels in the Flint water supply were extremely high.
This passage shows that there was indeed precedent for what was happening in Flint—because it had happened before, and it had been covered up before. Mona realized in this moment that there was a reason a lot of people didn’t really know what was happening with Flint’s water: the government didn’t want them to.
Themes
The MDEQ—the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality—was, in Elin’s estimation, “testing for the results they want[ed]” and underestimating the lead in the water. Mona couldn’t believe something like this could be happening in Michigan. Flint’s water was not safe—not by a long shot. Lead, after all, is one of the most powerful neurotoxins in existence. And to make matters worse, just months before, Flint’s emergency manager had rejected the city council’s plea to return to Detroit water, claiming that to do so would be too costly.
This passage confirms that the state’s government was actively trying to cover up the truth while local entities worked to squash any dissent in the Flint community. All of this information underscores the fact that no level of government felt Flint was worth investing in.
Themes
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Mona’s brain went into overdrive. She could not stop thinking about all the mothers she’d told to use tap water to mix up their babies’ formula—let alone the water Mona herself made her coffee with at the hospital each day. Lead poisoning is quiet—there are no immediate signs of it. But slowly and surely, lead settles in the body and attacks the central nervous system, causing terrible health problems and developmental delays, as well as memory issues, mood disorders, and a lowered IQ.
As a physician, Mona was well aware of the effects lead poisoning has on a body over time. All of this information made her realization about what was happening in Flint all the more horrifying. Mona knew that her patients who seemed healthy right now could actually be suffering from a silent deterioration of their minds and bodies—and that the people with the power to stop this crisis were actively working to ignore it and cover it up.
Themes
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Elin warned Mona that there would be a long road ahead for those who wanted to expose and fix the water crisis. Elin confessed she’d had a bad feeling about the water switch since she’d heard about it. Even back in high school, Elin and Mona had been tireless crusaders for environmental justice, getting involved in local politics at a young age in order to pressure their leaders to clean up the air in their neighborhood.
Even though Elin brought Mona some sad, distressing news, this passage suggests that the two old friends had a lot of confidence in one another after years of fighting for social and environmental justice initiatives in their hometown many years ago. Mona was getting some dispiriting information—but she knew already that she had a fellow fighter in Elin.
Themes
Elin told Mona that when she was working for the EPA, experts found that there was lead in the water in D.C.—and there had been for years. Officials manipulated lead measurements in the water to make the crisis seem less serious than it truly was. Worse, the D.C. water department never provided any studies showing how the lead levels had impacted local children. Elin then asked Mona if she had access to her patients’ blood-lead tests, and Mona said that she did. Elin told Mona that Mona had the power to do something about the crisis in Flint.
In this passage, Elin tells Mona about a water crisis that was already covered up in the past—so successfully, in fact, that most people were never even aware that it happened. Clearly rattled by the effects of the covered-up crisis, Elin wanted to make sure that Mona was going to be able to secure the proof needed to combat this new one. Even though the truth had lost out before, it didn’t have to in Flint.
Themes
