Connecticut College recently announced the book for its yearly Summer Reading Program which will now include the entire community rather than just being limited to first year students. The book for this year is What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City by Mona Hanna-Attisha, a 2019 autobiographical memoir about Hanna-Attisha’s work as a pediatrician in Flint, Michigan. Hanna-Attisha exposed the high lead pollution which led to the infamous Flint Water Crisis in 2014. As an activist for environmental justice, she has been interviewed by the media ranging from CNN to Comedy Central to talk about her efforts to expose lead pollution that was kept under wraps from the public, and the backlash she received after the news broke out. Currently, Hanna-Attisha is the Associate Dean for Public Health and C. S. Mott Endowed Professor of Public Health at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine.
In an effort to save money, former Governor of Michigan Rick Snyder and his team switched Flint’s water supply from its current provider, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, to the Flint River, a choice that would allow for Flint to avoid having to build a new pipeline. After noticing changes to the smell and aesthetic of the water once the water source was changed, Flint residents began to question whether the water was safe to drink. In her memoir, Hanna-Attisha mentions a moment when she assured a patient and her child that the water was safe for drinking, a memory that she circles back to during her activism. Due to inadequate testing and regulations from the Flint government, the water surpassed the EPA’s standards for lead. While any amount of lead is not good for humans, high levels of exposure can lead to apparent health problems that Hanna-Attisha has noticed with her patients including slowed brain development and damage to the nervous system. Instead of acknowledging that the lead came from the water source itself, many administrators insisted that it was from the pipes of Flint households, placing blame on the residents for drinking lead instead of those in power.
Throughout the memoir, Hanna-Attisha touches upon environmental injustice, a societal problem that intersects with other issues such as poverty and racism, leading to unproportional rates of public health issues in Flint, one of the poorest areas in Michigan. Overall, Hanna-Attisha describes herself as a believer in government, due to her family’s past in fleeing the rising war tensions in Iraq. However, as the book progresses, she quickly loses faith as she tries and fails to enforce the local and state government to act against the rising levels of lead in Flint childrens’ blood. Despite the odds, Hanna-Attisha also offers a glimpse of hope for change through the power of community action in the midst of the major public health crisis. Hanna-Attisha credits many people in varying positions of society, from a Flint mother to a Congressman, for coming together to help her bring this information to the public.
While the Flint Water Crisis is considered something of the past, the events of the Crisis still resonate today with multiple reports of water pollution hurting millions all over the country. By understanding the history and the causes leading up to the Flint Water Crisis, it will become easier to recognize the signs of government incompetence and lack of environmental policy to ensure more protection for the things that are essential to humans for survival. In partnership with Southeastern Connecticut’s One Book, One Region program, Hanna-Attisha will be visiting Conn’s campus in late September to talk to the community about her novel. Go get your copy today!
