Tom - This week on Arizona Illustrated, meet outgoing University of Arizona Student Body President, Patrick Robles.

Patrick - You don't like the fac that I'm speaking Spanish.

Yo hablo español and I'm gonna do a good job.

Tom - Demand for a popular psychedelic is threatening the Sonoran Desert toad.

Robert - I have an obligation to the Sonoran Desert Toad to get people to leave it alone.

Tom - Barbara makes socks the old fashioned way.

Barbara - Every machine I have is set to something.

They make a different thing with a different amount of tension is needed.

So that's why I have so many machines.

Tom - And a performance from pianist Fanya Lin.

Fanya - I am someone who enjoys learning always.

And that helps when you encounter challenges or obstacles in life as well.

(Savory guitar solo by XIXA) Hello and welcome to another all new episode of Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara, and we're coming to you today from the University of Arizona campus where the school year just ended and all those graduates are on to bigger and better things.

One of them is the outgoing student body president Patrick Robles, a guy who's always had a passion for public service, and that was amplified during his time in office here.

This story was produced by our own recently graduated intern, Allison Fagan, from the School of Journalism.

(woman) Can we interest you in some donuts?

(Patrick) Yes.

Where are the donuts from?

(woman) Krispy Kreme.

Thank you so much.

(Patrick) All right.

Ill advertise you guys.

I grew up going to football games.

My family, we've had South end zone tickets for 20 plus years.

And it was exciting to sit in the Zona Zoo.

Especially this year.

Right.

And I remember my family talking about Lute Olson back when he was coach.

I mean, it's ingrained in me.

Even though I'm a first gen college student, I'm a third generation Arizona Wildcat fan.

My passion for public service and politics began in sixth grade at Challenger Middle School in the South side of Tucson.

I was in the We the People program.

I was much more shy.

You wouldnt catch me talking to you.

But I had a teacher.

Her name was Miss Higuera and she taught me the importance of the Constitution, the value of government.

And we, the people standing up for what we believe in and standing up for what we want to see.

And so with that, it's driven me throughout middle school.

Serving as student body president, middle school throughout high school at Sunnyside High School, serving as student body president, and now here talking to you as the student body president of the University of Arizona.

And throughout my young life, I'm 21 years old.

I've been involved with the red for ed fight.

I've been involved with public education advocacy.

The fight for fair free transit and other fights that involve uplifting our community, specifically those who are from marginalized communities and folks who would have never seen themselves in positions of influence like the one I'm in right now.

(Eddie) Patrick is one of my most closest friends.

Immediately off the bat, like we just kicked it off and it was just an amazing friendship that grew into him mentoring me and really helping me decide kind of what I want to do as I grow and how I can get myself involved.

We went to Sunnyside High School together and we both were in student council, and that was around the time that we started seeing a lot of issues regarding safety when crossing the street occur.

So we got together, a group of students met with stakeholders like our district, the Ward five Council Office and the Tucson Department of Transportation, and really planned out what it looked like for a solution to be there.

So we came up with the crosswalk.

There was a lot of planning and development happening, but we went on winter break and by the time we got back it was built and installed.

[cheering] It was a milestone for me and just to see that like the work can get done.

And I think that for Patrick, it was just like that validation of like, yeah, if I can get together a group of students and we can really fight for this, things can happen.

(Patrick) Fare free transit is a critical issue for students here at the University of Arizona.

Many of us have seen the sun link, that rides throughout our university takes us through downtown, the West Side or whatnot.

It's been free as of March 2020 due to the pandemic.

Last fall, September, we learned that the city government was going to reinstate transit fares.

We, the students, have been taking advantage of this service and were worried that transit fares would limit our ability to travel, to commute to school, to go home, because it's a necessity.

And so my administration, with my leadership, with the colleagues within our city government, we got together and said, no, this can't this can't be.

So we began lobbying.

Each member of the city council spoke to the mayor's team.

We began mobilizing students here at the university.

(Eddie) I remember when the free transit meetings were happening, I was at City hall.

He was here, like watching them all night, taking notes on what certain council members were saying.

And he was just that committed to ensuring he knew everyone's perspective and how he can advocate for different perspectives as well.

(Patrick) As a student and more importantly, a Tucsonan I find myself concerned about what the reinstatement of public transit fares would mean for all people in this community.

Each local media platform covered this effort that students here at the university were fighting for.

And so thanks to the pressure and the relationships we built, fair free transit was extended until June 2023, until the end of the school year.

And I have no doubt in my mind that a large part of this is due to the movement that we, the students started the hashtag Why I Ride Movement.

It's cool getting on there, seeing how many people use it, and realizing that the fight we put on was worth it.

Student government is as powerful as you make it to be.

The governor doesn't just meet with anybody, nor does a Congress member, nor does a U.S. senators team.

It takes relationship building.

It takes taking yourself seriously.

When a student can buy groceries, can eat a good meal once they get home, can ride public transit for free.

That student is going to do better academically, therefore making their life easier, especially when they graduate from college.

I haven't shared this story publicly like this before, but on my first week in this office, I went to a meeting and I'm going to say who was at that meeting.

But I was told that there was people in those in that meeting that were uncomfortable with the fact that I was speaking Spanish at an event earlier that week that they were uncomfortable with the sign on my desk that says, si se puede.

This was in 2022.

I'm not the first Mexican-American or Latino in this room.

But it dawned upon me that these issues around racism, around bigotry still exist.

And I took that moment, I bit my tongue and I said, okay, game on.

You don't like the fact that I'm speaking Spanish.

yo hablo español.

And I'm going to do a good job.

(Eddie) We all grew up in areas that were underfunded, underrepresented, and we've had, you know, we faced many hardships.

So we all bring that here and on a university level and trying to really figure out how we can create the change here on the university for other students who may be facing that.

(Patrick) We've got great leaders coming in and we're going to continue to become a more diverse student government, a government that has people who are going to fight for issues that directly impact students.

So I'm very, very excited that we laid the groundwork.

And I know that that work is going to continue.

Tom - Spring in Tucson is marked by gorgeous blooms and rising temperatures and very little rain.

So as we anxiously await the monsoon, so does a unique amphibian that can be found here and nowhere else.

The Sonoran Desert Toad was once plentiful in this region, but now the experts worry it's being exploited for the psychedelic substances it produces that's become increasingly popular in recent years.

[Soft upbeat music] My name is Robert Villa.

I'm 36 years old, native Tucsonan.

Im president of Tucson Herpetological Society.

[Music continues] Im gonna give her a little bath here.

[Water running] I live with a Gila Monster, a desert tortoise and a rosy boa.

I grew up flipping rocks and and logs and looking for lizards and bugs.

There's pictures of me in the crib with little sock snakes that my grandmother put in the in the crib with me.

So I think my destiny as a naturalist and a herpetologist was sort of sealed.

Yeah.

This a Sonoran Desert toad Incilius, l. alvarius.

And we are just near a parking lot along the Santa Cruz River.

The Sonoran Desert toad is the amphibian version of the Saguaro, and that it's found nowhere else except in the Sonoran Desert region.

Sorry, little guy, was probably traumatic for you.

They're big toads and they can live up to 20 years.

Probably more.

They spend their lives mostly asleep until monsoon season.

They are actually awakened by the sound of running water or water hitting the ground.

Thunder.

[Thunder crashes] That's what actually brings them to the surface.

And it's a race to eat, mate, lay eggs, eat some more and go back under when the before the water dries up.

Oh, here we go.

And, uh, people confuse this with bullfrogs because bullfrogs are also big and green.

But again, toads have these big glands behind each eye, and bullfrogs don't.

The toad has produced this chemical, 5 MeO DMT as a defensive mechanism.

It takes a lot of harrasment and a lot of stress for it to willingly exude the substance.

5 MeO DMT purely smoked and inhale this instant, uh, trip out of consensus reality.

It's a it's can be likened to a near-death experience.

I haven't smoked it.

I don't intend to.

[Psychedelic music] People describe pixelated vision, extreme senses of euphoria.

Well-being, love, clarity, a general awakening of reality and consciousness.

On the other hand, people who react negatively experience extreme trauma and years of therapy.

Then about 2017, I was approached by Vice Media to consult on an episode for a program that dealt in psychedelic substances.

We were able to interview Yaqui Community Elders and talk about the actual role the toad has in Yaqui culture.

To this day, there's no conclusive evidence that suggests that toads were used as psychedelics by any pre-Hispanic cultures.

When the episode aired, this really shot the toad into popularity, even though there was factual information and we stated that it wasn't indigenous cultural practice.

People want it to experience it.

To have this and use to use it is a federal offense.

It's breaking federal law.

That doesn't stop people from doing it, of course.

In 1980, a guy named Ken Nelson landed on an obscure paper which outlines the fact that this one toad species produces 5 MeO DMT.

And Ken had a light bulb go off.

He found a Sonoran Desert toad, and he squeezed the gland onto his windshield.

And when it dried, he scraped it off and he smoked it.

And he had a transcendental experience.

And he became so excited by this that he wrote a pamphlet.

He would just leave this this pamphlet in places wherever he went.

It has its, its risks.

Someone said this can either cure PTSD or it can cause it.

So when people collect toads and they usually grab great buckets full or bags full and they take them to a central location where they squeeze the glands and collect the substance, and they don't return the toads.

They have habitats.

They have neighborhoods, if you will.

And if they're removed from them, then they have a very low survival rate.

[Soft music] I'm looking for the etymology of this toad name.

The Tucson Herprlogical Society.

We give small grants for research just to understand toad populations.

Amphibians have experienced severe declines all over the world from chytrid fungus, pollution, climate change, um, habitat modification, roads which which they get smashed on on top of collecting, which we can't really measure very well.

At least five sites which were known to have toads did not have toads.

I can't tell you if that's from pollution.

I can't tell you if they've gone somewhere else.

But from a couple of years to the next, at five localities, toads have disappeared completely.

It's really a race against time to understand what are healthy toad populations.

And then what are the threats to toads.

[Motorcycle sound] Psychedelics are popular and everyone is curious about them.

I think a nightclub is a great place to talk about drugs.

The toad is essentially a laboratory that produces pure 5 Me0 DMT.

So there's almost no difference whatsoever between what a toad produces and what a laboratory produces.

The toads live at the venue there.

They're known to be there.

It will be perfect to talk about this is This toad is at risk.

If you're doing psychedelics to be a better person or to be a more conscientious person, there's there's a dissonance there that that has to be addressed.

Our goal is to say, Look, there's all these other threats and we're trying to quantify all of those measurable threats and say the toad is not doing well and collecting them cannot, cannot help at all.

I have an obligation to the Sonoran Desert toad to get people to leave it alone.

Let let the toad be a toad.

And if you're going to do 5 MeO DMT, you can source it from other places besides a living creature.

[Upbeat music ends] Tom - Let's talk about socks.

We wear them every day, but we rarely think about them unless we lose one.

Next, meet Barbara Schroeder, who knits socks on a 130 year old antique sock knitting machine.

You see, Barbara loves socks, especially wool ones, which she says we can wear year round.

Yes, even in summer.

[lighthearted, humorous piano] My first pair of socks took me six months, but I finally got that pair of socks done.

I was the proudest person in the world.

I now make a pair in an hour and a half.

Every sock I look at and I like.

They make me happy.

My name is Barbara Schroeder.

I've had, like, many lives.

Right before I came to Tucson I wove, and I was living in Minnesota.

And I was at the Weavers Guild in Minneapolis, and someone brought in a pair of these perfectly made socks.

Somebody else says, “These are store bought.

“You can't sell this at our bazaar thing ”.

And somebody says, “No, they were made on an antique sock machine ”.

And my ears perked up and I thought, wow.

[ “CLAIRE DE LUNE ” BY CLAUDE DEBUSSY PLAYS] I went online and I saw them.

Well, then I also saw that you can't find them.

Once they electrified the factory, they would melt them down.

So not that many of the old machines are left.

I joined a Yahoo socks-cranking group that was worldwide.

It's almost like a cult.

I found a woman in New Zealand that had machines for sale, and she promised they worked.

So that's where I got my first machine, which is out in the living room.

[commanding] Stay.

What?

Youre just too nutsy for me dog.

The old machines like the one in front of you... 1830s the man who invented the flatbed knitting machine turned his flatbed round, and made a circular sock machine.

This one doesn't make the same clicking noise, but they make a little clicking noise.

You can hear it, you know.

[sound of clicking] I think we just messed up that sock.

But that's okay.

That's all right.

Anyway, I can fix it.

[clicking sound of nails being run along metal divets] Somebody worked on this machine to make -- Well, how much money would you make in 1850?

And young girls, I assume there'd be like, 12, 13-year old girls could have been in there, to even older women, were bringing home their 25 cents from working all day long, making socks.

They left sort of a mark on the machines to me.

I can trace my heritage, like back to Ireland.

There could have been girls in my family that worked in these machines.

The old machines carry that sense of a person, which it has heart to me.

Everybody could pull out a drawer and there's a bunch of socks in there.

But if you were somewhere in the trenches, or overseas fighting, socks become a critical issue.

During World War 1, the soldiers were fighting in France in the trenches.

But a lot of them only had one pair of socks.

They got wet and yucky, and they had what was called trench foot.

[upbeat classical piano] They put out a call for women to make socks.

The factories sent machines to the front, and with it would come a person who could teach the kids who were “walking wounded ”, I guess, is what you'd say, how to make socks for the other guys.

It was a massive effort.

Wool socks are better than anything you could buy because one, there's lanolin.

So they actually do nice things for your feet.

You think of wool on an animal - It's an insulator to keep the hot out as well as the cold.

Sort of keeps your body temperature, your body temperature.

So in the summertime when you're wearing your wool socks, it's much better than a cotton sock.

Your feet don't get hotter than they should.

Wool socks stay dry and cool.

I don't look at myself I don't look at myself so much as anything other than a factory worker.

So Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays are women's socks.

On Thursdays and Fridays I do mens.

So I go to my little piece of paper and say, “Ohp!

I need men's extra large ” That gives me a balance to the week.

Every machine I have is set for something.

They make a different thing, [metallic whirring and cranking] theres a different amount of tension is needed.

But that's why I have so many machines.

that and I'm sort of addicted to them.

[machine cranking sound] It just is very calming to me.

In the mornings on Mondays, I will go and get all the yarn I'm going to want for the week.

And I will wind the cones up.

[sound of machine whirring] [piano music continues] Then I would sit down and I, you know, I do clean my house.

It doesn't look like it, but I do periodically clean my house.

By afternoon, I'm cranking socks.

By Thursday, I'm washing socks.

Every day is kind of the same thing.

There's different routines, but that's kind of what the day is like.

I am a bit of a hermit.

I tend to be a little compulsive.

Which is maybe why this works.

I also need to make things.

You're born that way.

Okay.

It's how you're put together.

I was the one who would make somebody a candle out of crayons that would melt all over the table when you lit it.

I come from a generation where my parents and grandparents saved balls of string.

Today people would just throw it away.

So I use every bit.

I don't have big challenges.

I think that's part of the reason why I like doing it.

It's sorta -- not quite mindless but it's just therapeutic.

I walk in here and I'm happy.

I overbuy.

There's no getting around it.

People say, “What happens?

You know, you're 73 years old.

You've got quite a bit of yarn ”.

If I quit selling at the market, I'm going to make socks for homeless people.

Everybody deserves good socks.

[lighthearted, humorous piano] Fanya Lin is an electrifying pianist and an assistant professor at the Fred Fox School of Music at the University of Arizona.

She recently sat down to play an exclusive set for our cameras at Crowder Hall on campus, which is also the venue for her upcoming performance with the Tucson Repertory Orchestra on June 3rd, 2023.

(Emotive piano starts playing) Fanya - The most important thing when I'm learning a repertoire is that I want to understand what I want to say and what the composer wants to say.

As a performer, we are kind of serving as a medium between the composer with the audience, so we're kind of this bridge.

It's a process that you have to prepare yourself, not just physically, but also emotionally.

A lot of the times, when I design my program, I like to design it around having this space of complete focus and concentration.

I feel this connection of this physical sensation with whatever I do, and I really enjoy the feeling of when you are focusing on something where you feel like you are not playing.

But something else was playing through you and you know exactly when to play, where to play every single note.

In the slow movement, I almost feel like I could see the composers emotions.

Almost like agony and pain and despair in the music.

But then there are also this exciting outburst of energy and virtuosity that you will hear in the repertoire.

I always hope that the audience could receive my message.

Not just the notes or the flashy, fast and loud sections, but also the story or the emotional engagement or the picture that I was trying to depict as I perform.

I am someone who enjoys learning always, and that helps when you encounter challenges or obstacles in life as well.

When things get hard, you still have to stick with it and believe that in the end something good is going to come out of it.

For more info on Fanya Lins June 3rd performance at Crowder Hall in Tucson, go to Music dot Arizona dot edu slash events.

Thank you for joining us from the University of Arizona.

I'm Tom McNamara.

We'll see you in a few weeks for another all new episode of Arizona Illustrated.