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In the U.S., Polish Jews arriving before 1910 were also perceived as stupid (for no other reason than they were accustomed to a different culture and spoke another language). So many "Pollock" jokes arose that Americans still tell them to this day, even if no one remembers why. The Polish Jews suffered heavy job discrimination and suspicion of criminality; not surprisingly, their children suffered low grades and IQ test scores. Today, of course, many Americans hold the opposite prejudice; Jews are viewed as the most brilliant of ethnic groups.
Most stereotypes are created by the media. They don't call media people "opinion makers" for nothing.
When you control media, especially TV/motion picture media, you can make smart people into dumb people, dumb people into smart people, evil people into angels, angels into evil people, etc. You can do this not only with ethnic groups, but also with individuals, corporations, consumer products, regional groups, politicians......you name it.
Its no accident that politicians and corporations spend millions of dollars on TV advertising. They know the tremendous power that TV imagery of their person, product, or company has on the human mind. Its no accident that when company A which makes product ABC, sees its sale of product ABC go through the roof when TV advertising (favorable TV imagery) of it is seen on a major media TV show like the superbowl or any other major broadcast event.
Unfortunately for Polish people, many anti-Polish bigots have controlled big TV networks and motion picture production companies and made sure their anti-Polish bias was incorporated into the shows and movies they produced and controlled. This occurred mostly in the 1960's and 1970's.
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