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Crossing the Line:
Comedians, Politicians & Shock Jocks
Teja Arboleda, M.Ed

This multimedia lecture by actor/speaker/educator Teja Arboleda, digs deep into the freedom of speech issue. By asking the current hot-button question -Where is the line, and who - if anyone - is allowed to cross - Arboleda challenges the audience to consider the consequences of stereotypes reinforced by the famous, the powerful, and the media. Using his fast-paced humor, up-to-the-minute statistics, mixed with audience participation and actual video examples, this explosive program focuses on celebrity/media faux pas, and examines America's reaction, such as Seinfeld's Michael Richards (Kramer), Don Imus, & Rosie O'Donnell.

Teja is African American, Native American, Filipinio-Chinese, & German-Danish. Although Arboleda was born in Brooklyn, New York, he lived in Germany for two years and grew up in Japan. He has a BA in Visual and Linguistic Socio-Communuications from Clark University, and is fluent in Japanese and German. His recent PBS documentary "Crossing the Line: Multiracial Comedians," won the 2009 Silver Telly Award for best documentary.

Teja Arboleda is a television producer, director, writer, actor and public speaker. He also is the founder and president of Entertaining Diversity, Inc. Entertaining Diversity, Inc. provides consulting and education programs on cross-cultural and diversity issues for educational institutions, companies, and civic groups all over the United States. Using entertainment-based formats, Entertaining Diversity's unique mix of theater performance, lectures and multimedia presentations has won high critical acclaim by institutions and at professional gatherings such as the National Association for Multicultural Education. Arboleda's highly regarded performance-lectures Ethnic Man® and Healing Racism have taken him to over 500 cities and towns in the U.S. as keynote to international organizations such as TESOL, and national institutions such as Yale University. Recognition of the importance of Arboleda's vision includes an appearance before the Senate committee on racial classification where he testified for changes in federal racial and ethnic categories, and hundreds of news stories in the media including the New York Times, Associated Press and National Public Radio.

Arboleda is a prolific television producer and director. He also acts as a liaison producer between television and video production companies in Japan and the US. In addition, he has made outstanding contributions to public television in the United States. In 1994, he won an Emmy Award for Public Affairs Programming. From 1990 to 1992, he was staff editor for the nationally acclaimed PBS documentary series FRONTLINE. From 1990 to 1994, he was assistant director/editor for minority affairs programming at WGBH-TV in Boston, Massachusetts where he was awarded an excellence distinction for service as a faculty member in the Public Affairs program production training courses. Since 1985, he has produced, directed and filmed music videos,including 500 corporate sales and training videos, commercials, PSA's and independent films. Recent clients include: Verizon Wireless, MEDITECH, JJWild, Valco, Partners Health Care, Massachusetts General Hospital, Historical Entertainments and CELT Corp.

As an actor and comedian, Arboleda often uses a fast paced comedy style, focusing on ethnic and culturally related topics. In 1990, he played the leading role in the PBS television docudrama "Matzeliger."

Arboleda is the author of In The Shadow of Race (Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 1998), an account of his personal experiences as a multicultural, multiethnic and "multiracial" American. Recently he created, produced, directed, wrote and starred in the six part, first through fourth grade educational video series, Diversity Elementary, which aired on PBS in early 2001, and is distributed by AGC/United Learning. He has produced segments on cultural diversity issues for WCVB-TV's (ABC) Chronicle and has recently completed web marketing videos for Verizon Wireless.

Arboleda is adjunct professor, teaching Race & Ethnic Relations and Media Production at The New England Institute of Art in Brookline, Massachusetts. He received his B.A from Clark University, and his M.Ed from Lesley University, Cambridge, MA.

I can not express how much my campus and I enjoyed the presentation. It went over better than I ever could have imagined. I was overjoyed at the positive feedback I am still getting from my superiors, collegues, and student body. I would like to possibly look at doing another presentation  in a year or so. I really enjoyed working with you and Teja and look forward to doing so in the future.

Have a Great Day

Amber S

University of Alabama

The program was excellent! We thoroughly enjoyed having Teja here at James Madison! Thank you so much for working with us!

Fareine