Zach Ramon Fitzpatrick also known as Asian German Updates is Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he teaches courses like “Asian America / Asian Germany: History, Identity, Media” and “Exploring Asian German Studies.” Zach recently released the co-edited volume Charting Asian German Film History: Imagination, Collaboration, and Diasporic Representation (2025). For most of the Asian German community in Berlin and beyond, Zach is known as Asian German Updates, an Instagram account that Zach conceived back in 2019. Born to a second-generation Filipino American mother, he lived in Germany for a few years as a child, when his mother was a nurse in Southwest Germany. Since then, he has been interested in German studies and particularly in the sub-field of “Asian German Studies”, thus his research predominantly focuses on film/media representation and the diaspora. Initially, he started Asian German Updates to create more visibility for Asian Germans.
This conversation took place over Zoom, between Germany and the U.S. in early 2025.
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Thị Minh Huyền Nguyễn: Thank you for reminding me on how we met, it feels like ages ago, it was lovely to connect in person in 2022. I remember when I came across your Instagram account, I was so amazed about your page. You’ve been so supportive of the community here in Berlin and beyond. I would love to learn why and how you started Asian German Updates?
Zach Ramon Fitzpatrick: I started @AsianGermanUpdates in August 2019. I was a graduate student in Chicago at the time and I was in Berlin that summer doing research for my dissertation about Asian German film representation. A few years earlier I met Sun-ju Choi and Kimiko Suda from korientation and then a few others. But it was in 2019 at korientation’s summer BBQ event that I realized everyone kept asking me the same question. It was always like, “Oh, you’re Asian American, but you’re here in Germany and you speak German. Why is that?” So on the one hand, I thought starting Asian German Updates could be a shortcut to that question.
But also, much more importantly, I realized I had collected this interesting information through my film research. I had found these incredible examples and I wanted to share them with people because this information is lost in the archives. It’s there, but hardly anyone is looking at it. I thought, maybe this information could be empowering for people and, you know, it certainly should be more useful to the world. So, that was really the impetus for me. And I realized at the korientation BBQ, there was this community setting, where everyone was reflecting on Asian German identity, also Asian identity more broadly in Germany. So, I was inspired directly by that event. Just thinking like “you can do something like this on Instagram.”
Huyền: That’s awesome. I was curious whether you yourself are German and I think a lot of people ask: “what is your connection to Germany?” Maybe you can explain that.
Zach: Yes, good question. I am not German. So, I am a mixed or “half” Filipino American, and actually I’m third generation. My grandparents were the ones who came to the US in the 1950s, and then they had my mother, who was born in Hawaii. So, I’m third generation Filipino.
When I was five years old, my mother was a nurse and she got stationed in Germany. It was near Bitburg, like the beer, “Bitte ein Bit”. She worked on the Spangdahlem Air Base there. My family lived in an actual village, Badem, so we didn’t have to live in the military housing. But I still went to school on the American airbase. We lived in Germany from when I was five to when I was eight years old. In the village, we had a Spar mini-market and a Bäcker (bakery) that we used to go to.
Huyền: And then your interest for the German language sparked?
Zach: So, in eighth grade in the US I actually started with Spanish. My family repeatedly said, “With Tagalog (the Filipino language), there’s some Spanish influence, so you should take that.” There is some influence, but it’s mostly loan words. Learning Spanish did not help with Tagalog grammar, and I just wasn’t that interested in Spanish. Starting in eleventh grade in high school, there was the opportunity to take German. I had those childhood experiences in Germany. I had a really great high school teacher at the time, and he made learning the language much more interesting than Spanish.
I did four semesters of German in high school, and then in my undergrad, I double majored in German and International Studies, which is a mix of history, politics, culture, and language. Later, I went to a university in Virginia, where I had German professors who kept me motivated and for my PhD, I went to the University of Illinois Chicago. So, that’s when I moved to the Midwest in the US. It was during my PhD in 2016 that I decided to take my interest in German and combine that with my personal background of being Asian American. I thought, there must be something there. Obviously there are Asian people in Germany, but I didn’t know much at the time. So I made it an intentional decision to combine these two parts of my experiences.
Huyền: Fast forward, now you are an assistant professor of German Studies?
Zach: Yes, exactly, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. I’m pretty lucky to be in this position because it has everything that I want to do. I get to teach, but I also get time and resources to research what I want, and travel to conferences in Germany or Austria. Plus, I am affiliated with the Asian American Studies program. It’s allowing me to do so much, so, this is the path for now.
Huyền: How did your passion for film started emerging?
Zach: I can trace that back to an undergraduate class in Virginia. I took an intro to German cinema class and it was a historical survey from the 1920s all the way to the present. We looked at silent cinema from the Weimar Republic, then covered some kitschy things like Sissi (1955) and so-called Heimat (homeland) film genre, and then what they call “New German Cinema” in English, like Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Angst essen Seele auf (Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, 1974). And then at the time, which was new for us in the US, we ended with Turkish German films by Fatih Akin: Gegen die Wand (Head-On, 2004) and Auf der anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven, 2007). Those were exciting because it was really the first time I saw more diverse perspectives, people of color or migrant perspectives in the German context, and it also made me reflect on my own time back in Germany in the 90s. Of course, we lived in a small town in Rhineland-Palatinate, but I didn’t really see that many Asians besides the people who ran a small Chinese restaurant in a nearby town.
Huyền: So it was watching Turkish German films that sparked your interest in Asian representation in German film?
Zach: I took it as a challenge when I started the PhD in 2016. I was interested in German cinema, and wanted to see to what extent East, Southeast, and South Asian representation was a thing. I started tracking all the films I knew, which was initially 10-15 and they were mostly orientializing films. I don’t know if you have heard of Doris Dörrie, but she has done several Japanese themed films like Kirschblüten (Cherry Blossoms, 2008) and Erleuchtung garantiert (Enlightenment Guaranteed, 1999). In those films, Asia is this spiritual and exotic place, and her films were some of the only examples that I was aware of initially. As I kept watching, every once in a while, I would see an Asian actor here, an Asian actress there, in the background, so I got curious, and then I would look them up. Then my list grew from there. Now, I have compiled over 300 films. Of course, not all of these films are good, but they are part of the history. They do give us a fuller picture of what Germany has imagined Asia to be.
Huyền: And so that was also the topic of your PhD.
Zach: Yes, I did a dissertation called Shifting Focus: Asian German Film Representation since 1910. 1910 was the release of the earliest fictional film I found called Japanisches Opfer (Japanese Sacrifice). The idea with “shifting focus” was that I had noticed that a lot of Asian Germans tend to use the term “invisible” when they’re describing Asian experiences in Germany. And I definitely understand how that term is being used, but I thought for German film history, that might not be the right word. If I found over 300 film examples, maybe invisible is not the right word, but rather “out of focus.” So, my idea with this project was to shift the focus to Asians. Even if they were background characters or minor parts of the movie, what happens if we give our full attention to these seemingly unimportant or overlooked aspects of German film history?
Huyền: What kind of differences do you see when you look at the narratives that Asian German film has provided us with since 1910 compared to Asian American film?
Zach: I can give you a few examples. One of the differences would be that, there were more Asians working in early Hollywood compared to Germany. For example, there was Sessue Hayakawa, who had his own production company (Haworth Pictures). He was a Japanese American and he was one of the highest paid Hollywood actors at one point in the 1910s. This sounds very surprising to us now, an Asian male being so well paid and that everyone thought he was really attractive and charming as an actor. But what went wrong after that? Also, to give you a counter example, Chinese American actress Anna May Wong struggled in Hollywood and she had a lot of stereotypical roles where she played servants or enslaved characters. She was always the side character, very rarely the protagonist. Then in the late 1920s, she actually got so frustrated with Hollywood that she left and went to Europe, starting in Berlin. She starred in three different German co-productions: Song from 1928, Großstadtschmetterling (Pavement Butterfly) from 1929, and then Hai-Tang from 1930. In all of these films she was the lead character.
If you looked at all the posters, she was very prominently featured. That is very important for Asian German history. We have this person who is renowned in the US, but these German films aren’t very well known. And we see an example of her leaving the Hollywood system for at least a few years to try something different in Europe because she saw more artistic opportunities there. Those are really important moments that are empowering to know, that not everything in Hollywood was great. That’s one example that I find particularly interesting, because of the transnational connection between the US and Germany.
There’s plenty of other examples. Differences between Asian representation in West Germany and East Germany. Or you know, Vietnamese representation in East German films versus practically none in West German films. There’s even a few Vietnamese-German co-productions that were made. Geschwader Fledermaus (Bat Squadron) from 1958 is one of the earliest examples of Vietnam being prominently featured in a German film, and specifically an East German one.
So, if I had to summarize it: different migration patterns, different interactions with various Asian countries, and different politics influenced US and German films. Regarding the similarities, it would be stereotypes like the dragon lady or the so-called lotus blossom – the hyper-sexualized East or Southeast Asian woman. We see some similar things like that in German cinema as well. There’s just something about the Western perspective of Asia that’s pretty common in the US and Europe. I’m sure you could find similar things in British or French cinema as well.
But this is something I haven’t quite gotten to yet in my research, but I would like to be a little more specific because I do think that there’s the danger that we take the Asian American model, such as using terms like “dragon lady” and “lotus blossom” when they don’t exactly apply, and that’s something I wonder about. Can we always apply these concepts and archetypes to the German model or is there something slightly different at work?
Huyền: Let’s talk about our current times, what are you most excited about? Any favorite films or shows?
Zach: Let’s see… I have a soft spot for DRUCK (Pressure, TV series, 2018-2022), season 6 in particular. It had that really interesting Black German and Vietnamese German queer relationship. That’s from 2020, but I felt like that was such a huge step forward in terms of Asian German representation. I also really enjoy Doppelhaushälfte (Semi-Detached, TV series, 2022-present), I think it’s fun with veteran actress Minh-Khai Phan Thi. In terms of films, I love Âni Võ’s Stinkfrucht (Taste of Home, short film, 2022). Remember when we saw that together at a BAFNET (Berlin Asian Film Network) event in 2023?
Huyền: Ah yes!
Zach: I’ve noticed that television seems to be progressing a lot faster than film. Since 2020, there’s been so much Vietnamese German representation in German television, starting with DRUCK, and then Echt (Real, TV series, 2022) and Nackt über Berlin (Naked Above Berlin, TV series, 2023). There are just a lot of different examples and to see second-generation Vietnamese German perspectives in the mainstream is so special. These are shows that everyone can watch. They’re not art-house films only shown in one theater. So I think, television is moving relatively fast.
One thing that I would like to see more of is feature films, and I completely understand that there are structural reasons that that is not happening as often as it’s very difficult to get these films funded. It’s difficult to get those resources, but that would be a sign of the German film industry being more inclusive. We do see it with more and more short films, but less so with feature films. Every once in a while I get to share these casting calls on Asian German Updates for a Korean or Vietnamese German protagonist. So I’m really excited to see what happens with those.
Huyền: Any Asian American films or shows that you are currently excited about?
Zach: I have yet to see The Sympathizer (TV Series, 2024), and to highlight a difference between the Asian German and Asian American experience, I really think there’s more Vietnamese German representation than there is Vietnamese American representation, at least in the mainstream. I thinkThe Sympathizer is one of the first examples that I can think of that’s Vietnamese-centered, but made in Hollywood. Generally, there is the occasional actor here and there, but, not many Vietnamese American stories, per se. So, that’s why I also look at the Vietnamese German media landscape.
I really liked Joy Ride (2023). It was fun to see a raunchy comedy, but led by Asian women and non-binary people. I also like Stephanie Hsu. It’s amazing to see movies like Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022). The fact that those movies can get wide distribution and people enjoy them. I mean, if you think about it, it’s a really weird movie, but I love it and I’m glad that people are giving those stories a chance.
Huyền: So, when I first met you, it was so interesting to hear that you’re Asian and that you’re studying German studies, and that you’re not from New York or California, where there is a major Asian American population.
Do you ever feel like you would have loved to live in these places where there is a bigger Asian population? Sometimes, that’s how I feel, missing NYC’s bustling Chinatown.
Zach: I grew up in Virginia on the East Coast and there’s actually a decently large Filipino American community where I’m from, but not not to the extent of New York or California. And then when I moved to the Midwest, it was almost like another kind of Asian American experience; Chicago also has a nice Chinatown, which I think you visited. This was something that came up at the Asian American Studies conference in Seattle in 2024. They had some panels on “Asian Americans in the Midwest.” So from places like Illinois, Wisconsin, et cetera and people were talking about their unique experiences, which made me think about regional differences, like Asian Germans from Berlin vs. Asian Germans from other parts of Germany.
So, yes, there are other diasporic experiences. There’s not just the Asian American model, nor the California-specific Asian American model. There’s not only one experience and it’s incredible seeing this diversity. And yet there is something that connects us all. Whenever I travel to Berlin, I feel a strong connection with the Asian community there. And there’s something really special about that. I’m not German, but we can still share these experiences.
Huyền: When you grew up in Virginia, was your family connected to the Asian or Filipino community there?
Zach: It’s interesting, for example, in Virginia Beach, people generally know about the Filipino community in a way that I don’t think broader American society does. People in that area know about lumpia, which is our spring roll, or they know about pancit, which is our rice noodle dish. It’s food that Filipino families frequently bring to parties. So this definitely characterized my childhood.
My Lolo and Lola (grandparents) were religious, so a lot of Filipino community events were connected to the Catholic church. I’ve heard that the church is similarly important to the Korean German community. Also, being able to go to local Asian markets to find certain ingredients, dishes, or desserts was a privilege in my childhood. One of my closest friends from middle school onward was second-generation Filipino and I spent so much time hanging out at his house. So, I would say the Filipino influence was always there for me in this part of southeastern Virginia.
I’m third generation and I’m mixed, so one thing that I often hear from second generation Asians in both the US and Germany is that they struggle or have struggled with this desire to integrate and “be white.” It was almost the opposite for me in that I wish I were fluent in Tagalog or my grandparents’ specific language, Bicol, but because they raised their second-generation children in the 1960s, a time of particular racial unrest in the US, teaching these languages was a not a priority for them. Today, I sometimes have this impostor syndrome, because of my “ethnically ambiguous” appearance. But for me, it was was a huge part of growing up that my Lolo and Lola, other relatives, as well as family friends were always nearby. As a kid, it felt very obvious to me that I was Filipino American and I’m grateful to have been raised in that nurturing, multi-generational environment.
Huyền: This would be the last question: I saw in your stories that you are working on your first book? Maybe you can share what’s next for you?
Zach: So, it’s a volume I worked on with two co-editors and we collected 12 essays. The book is called Charting Asian German Film History: Imagination, Collaboration, and Diasporic Representation (2025). The book is split into three sections. In the “Imagination” section, we look at films from the 1920s and 30s, when there was no real attempt to collaborate with Asians. It was like: we’re going to tell these Asian stories from a German perspective and our imagination of Asia. Yet, we still managed to highlight interesting moments of subversion or challenging of stereotypes.
To give you an example: The chapter that I wrote for that section, I look at a German film called Taifun (Typhoon) from 1933 and an Austrian film called Letzte Liebe (Last Love) from 1935. These are two films that feature Asian leads in romantic roles. So it was really surprising to see two Asian performers (Valéry Inkijinoff and Michiko Tanaka) actually speaking German in early sound films from the 30s. And on top of that, they’re in these relatively positive roles.
That’s not something that you could have done in Hollywood at the time because they had very strict rules about what they called miscegenation, meaning not mixing races. You couldn’t show a white actor and an Asian actor kissing at that time. That’s another example where Europe didn’t have the same restrictions Hollywood did.
Then, in the second section of the book “Collaboration,” we look at examples of Germany doing these co-productions with different countries in Asia. In the last section on “Diasporic Representation,” that’s where we see more contemporary projects and second generation Asian Germans in films and TV.
You can find the book here.
Huyền: Congratulations!
Zach: Yes, thank you. Eventually, I would like to publish a full monograph based on my dissertation.
For now, I have these two Chinese colleagues (Qinna Shen and Qingyang Freya Zhou) who I work together with in this field of Asian German studies and we really wanted to get something out into the world.
The monograph will be another academic book, but that’s also a reason why I do Asian German Updates: to reach a broader audience. Academic work is important, but it’s not the only way to disseminate information. I really wanted to make things more accessible and not everything has to be a full article or a full book. Some things can just be a little post here, a little story there.
Born in Germany, Thị Minh Huyền Nguyễn is a Vietnamese artist-scholar and athlete. She started Gold to Green, an online publication and podcast at the intersections of health, running, sustainability and culture in 2011. Having studied and worked in New York City, Huyen has co-founded WocForward in Brooklyn (a monthly exercise club for and by women of color) and Wayv Run Kollektiv back in Berlin to elevate queer, Black and brown, underrepresented runners. When Huyen is not writing or running, she’s involved in anti-racism / empowerment projects such as ichbinkeinvirus.org and biwoc-rising.org.
