The cinema's strong influence on the immigrants demonstrated the power of media. The immigrants comprised a large percentage of the film audience because they wanted to absorb the images of Americaness and American culture that were displayed. They believed that the films taught them the lifestyles that were acceptable in our society. In order to achieve this total assimilation, the films encouraged the abandonment of their past, their history and their culture. There were often severe reprecussions of this assimilation because the minority children were often ashamed of their ethnicity and given a bad perspective of their former culture.
Ethnicity exists in all forms of cinema that is created.
Often the presence of white ethnicity goes undetected because it does not involve members of different races. However, the white ethnic minorities had much more power and influence in the movie industry than did the other marginalized minorities. The voice of the Latin American and African American was rarely heard within the realm of producing and behind the scenes work of the films. The Jewish male however was able to have a significant influence and was therefore able to avoid and prevent the ethnic stereotype of the Jewish people. As a result of the absence of the African American and Latinos behind the scenes of the movie industry, these minorities were not able to prevent the sterotypes that were given to them.