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Chapter 5
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
In the morning, when she woke up, Mona smelled breakfast and knew that her mother was downstairs making crepes. Mona rushed through her morning routine, thinking all the while of her upbringing in Royal Oak, a nearby suburb, and her parents’ struggle to raise two Iraqi children in a place that had once been a hotbed of white supremacy and anti-Semitism. Mona learned as a child that the truth about a place and its people lies below the surface, and that one must dig deep without fear of what one might find.
This passage is yet another example of how the lessons Mona learned from her family in childhood shaped the person she became—and the adult decisions she ultimately made. Mona grew up knowing from an early age that things weren’t always what they seemed to be—and, as a grown woman, she endeavored to never let herself be lulled into a false sense of security by appearances alone. From a young age, Mona had a hunger for the truth.
Themes
As Mona’s father climbed the ladder as a technical engineer with General Motors, her mother went back to school to earn a master’s degree in chemistry and a teaching certificate to become an ESL instructor. Through their parents’ hard work, Mona and her brother Mark were able to find hope in the American Dream. But now, as an adult, Mona was realizing that the American Dream didn’t work for everyone—and was probably never meant to.
In this passage, Mona reckons with the meaning of the American Dream. The idea that anyone—no matter where they come from or what their position in life is—can find success and happiness in America is, in truth, nothing more than a national myth. Mona knew that for people like her family—people who already had certain advantages like education and a tight-knit community—the American dream was much more attainable than it was for people like the citizens of Flint who’d been sidelined for years by racism and austerity politics.
Themes
At the meeting with the county health official, the official spoke of Flint’s insufficient funding and sparse resources for lead remediation. Public health budgets were often the first things to be reduced throughout Michigan—especially in places like Flint, where most funding went to the police department. No one in the Michigan legislature seemed to care about these funding discrepancies, even though communities like Flint were the ones most in need of an influx of cash. Flint families needed inspections and renovations for lead abatement, but all Mona and her team could offer them were mops, cleaning supplies, and pamphlets.
This passage shows how deep, pervasive structural issues affect people. When there’s no money for public health initiatives or programs to help families solve the day-to-day issues before them, communities suffer. In places like Flint, where officials would rather pour money into the police budget in order to further restrain people and criminalize poverty, real and holistic change sadly becomes nearly impossible to create.
Themes
When Mona spoke up to ask the health official about the high lead levels in the Flint drinking water, the man responded that water wasn’t under the jurisdiction of the health department—water was the responsibility of public works. Mona, outraged, asked if his agency had noticed any changes in blood levels in the last year. He responded that he wasn’t even sure if anyone had looked. Mona resolved to email the man’s higher-ups at the health department—she was sure someone would be able to help.
Mona’s interaction with the Genesee County Health official described in this passage showed her that getting information out of any local, state, or federal organization was going to be difficult. Not only was an orchestrated cover-up going on at the top—but there was also a staggering degree of negligence taking place in many lower levels of local governance.
Themes
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