What the Eyes Don’t See Themes

What the Eyes Don’t See chronicles the water crisis that seized Flint, Michigan from 2014–2019 after the city switched its water source from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to the Flint River. When the switch occurred, officials neglected to add anti-corrosive chemicals to the water, and 100,000 citizens of Flint to were exposed to high levels of lead as a result. Local and federal public health institutions, however, denied that the water supply was…

“Our science spoke truth to power,” writes author and physician Mona Hanna-Attisha of her fight to force local, state, and federal officials to acknowledge their roles in burying the truth about the Flint water crisis. During this crisis, a hasty switch of Flint’s water source (meant to cut costs for the city’s budget) resulted in a water supply that was untreated with corrosion-control chemicals, allowing lead from old pipes to leach into the water supply…

The American Dream is the idea that anyone living in America, regardless of where they come from, can attain success and happiness. But according to Mona Hanna-Attisha, this ideal was “never meant” to work for people like the citizens of Flint, Michigan, a majority-Black city that’s plagued by poverty, racism, and harmful governmental policies. For Mona and her family of Iraqi immigrants, who arrived in America after fleeing Saddam Hussein’s regime in the…

What the Eyes Don’t See is a story of one woman boldly speaking out against corruption, racism, and environmental injustice. But throughout her book, Mona Hanna-Attisha also shares stories of her family’s longstanding commitment to social justice, progressive values, and upholding the righteous truth no matter the risks. Throughout the book, Mona invokes these stories about her closest relatives and her most distant ancestors—from freedom fighters to radical organizers to public health advocates—in her greatest…