Discuss as a class their notes and conclusions. Show clips from the other films and do the same note-taking activity as you did with The Immigrant. After watching several films, students could note trends in immigrant portrayals and write business letters to the studios that produced the films they watched. In these letters, students could share their observations of how immigrants are portrayed, offering praise for portrayals they find most fair and positive and criticism for portrayals they find stereotypical. In another extension, students might keep a diary or log of immigrant portrayals they see in current movies or TV shows.
Students can post their reviews on The New Americans Bulletin Board .
Students could also write an essay comparing the portrayal in immigrants from several films across time periods or within a certain time frame. The five types of immigrants appear early in film history. Films in this time represented a distinctly Eurocentric view of immigration. European immigrants assimilated and embodied the values of hard work, thrift, and temperance, while Asian immigrants retreated into their cultural enclaves and Mexican immigrants remained in subservient roles. Many films suggested intermarriage among European immigrants as the means towards achieving this end.