Oscars toast immigrants and inclusivity - despite Trump

America's biggest showbiz gala was mostly silent about most powerful person in the United States, never once uttering his name.

Yet, Hollywood's A-listers found ways to express how they really felt about Donald Trump's crackdown on immigrants, diversity, equity and inclusion and even his White House meltdown over Ukraine and dressing down of President Volodymyr Zelensky at the 97th Academy Awards ceremony, known as the Oscars, in Los Angeles.

While the performers and presenters didn't go so far as to rock the boat, it was nonetheless of particular significance that poignant tales of immigrants, transgender people, sex workers - all anathema to Trump - emerged the biggest winners on the night.

Was the Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization that votes for the Oscar winners, sending out a silent message to the US president that woke Hollywood is alive and well, and diversity and immigrants should be embraced and not despised?

Since taking office on January 20, Trump has rushed out a raft of executive orders aimed at ending all DEI initiatives not only in the government but also in private sectors in a blow to equal opportunity.

He's barred transgender people from the military, curbed care for trans youngsters and scrapped the X marker on US passports for non-binary and gender non-conforming persons.

In that light, it was ironic that Netflix musical Emilia Perez - a tale about a Mexican drug lord who transitions into a woman seeking justice for victims of drug and crime violence - walked off with an award, in a shot in the arm for embattled transgender people.

Zoe Saldana, who won the best supporting actress for her role in the movie, was vocal about how immigrants have helped shape and build America, saying her grandmother came to America in 1961 and she is "a proud child of immigrant parents, with dreams and dignity and hard-working hands."

Saldana added that the fact that she was "getting an award for a role where I got to sing and speak in Spanish - my grandmother, if she were here, she would be so delighted."

Her powerful speech struck not just at Trump's pledge to orchestrate "the largest deportation operation in American history" of up to 20 million people but also his order last week designating English as America's official language.

In another strike for immigrants, Adrien Brody's portrayal of a Hungarian holocaust survivor who comes to America to rebuild his life in The Brutalist won him the Oscar for best actor.

The son of immigrants, Brody said his family's history had inspired his performance.

To top it off, a raunchy comedy about a sex worker and the son of a Russian oligarch won the best movie, with director Sean Baker, who has an impressive body of work about marginalized people, thanking the sex workers who had helped him make Anora, saying "I share this with you."

The wittiest barb came from show host Conan O'Brien, as Anora continued to pull in the awards. "I guess Americans are excited to see somebody finally stand up to a powerful Russian," he joked to rapturous applause in a thinly veiled jibe at the US president for calling Zelensky a dictator, as well his cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, which has shocked the Western world.

Also, Brody summed up what much of America is praying for right now - a happier and a more inclusive world - and that "if the past can teach us anything, it's a reminder to not let hate go unchecked."