'Ethnic man' dispels myths of stereotypical American race

Teja Arboleda said that at one time, scientists took thousands of faces from across the world to come up with the "average" face -- and that face was his.

Arboleda has lived all over the world, although he was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., raised in Germany and spent his adolescence in Japan. When he moved back to America, he thought the country would be just like every film he had ever seen.

"But '90210' and 'Baywatch' is not the world," he said.

Arboleda grew up with the notion that every American had blue eyes, blond hair and white skin. At the Jesuit school he attended, he saw pictures of Jesus in a Bible who had "totally white, white skin," blue eyes and blond hair.

"He was the perfect, all-American surfer dude," Arboleda said.

With his humorous, fluid movements and explanations, Arboleda acted out the taunting he received as a child for not being typically white, with typically white parents.

His life, however, was not always as funny as his presentation, because under the laughter was a great sadness.

Arboleda remembers holding his dark hand up to his mother's white, German skin and asking her how he could look the same as her.

The problem of this dark skin was not only a personal struggle, but a social one. Arboleda has been spit on. Students at his university assumed he was a martial arts expert because he grew up in Japan. And he has been told to go back to where he belongs. But the problem is, he does not know where that is.

In Japan, he was called the "outside person." In America, he was told to go back to Mexico and the Middle East, although he has no descent from either of these places. And in Germany, his grandparents taught him that German women, food and entertainment were superior.

- Teja Arboleda

"There are four words to know: race, culture, ethnicity and nationality," he said.

Ethnicity is what matters, he explained. It is a combination of culture and geographic location. And though he is not Japanese, Arboleda considers Japanese his ethnicity.

Making the distinction between these words is important, said Niket Mull (senior-secondary education). Mull added he was impressed with Arboleda's lively presentation.

"I liked it a lot. It was very entertaining," Mull said. "But I'm disappointed more students weren't here."

Students enjoyed the presentation and were touched to the point that many approached Arboleda to share common experiences and feelings with him.

"I really enjoyed it," said Kina Jackson (freshman-international business). "It is important to shed all biases and to all get along."

The presentation, which about 100 people attended, was held at the Paul Robeson Cultural Center as an extension of Black History Month, Project Growth and the Multicultural Resource Center, as well as Unity Days.