Editor’s note: The following is the second part in a series profiling the cultural houses on campus.

With the walls still smelling of new paint, the Asian American Cultural Center, located at 1210 W. Nevada St., welcomed students at its open house Sept. 7 as it celebrated the beginning of its third year on campus.

The mission of the center is to provide information in educating the student population about Asian American issues through programs and cultural events.

“The center is a ground for students to share their experiences and to interact with each other,” said David Chih, director of the center and assistant dean of students.

“Such Asian American issues prevalent in society include racial stereotypes of Asian Americans, violence against Asian American women and taboos in Asian American culture,” said Ajay Alexander, senior in LAS and intern at the center.

Many people stereotype Asian American individuals to be “good kids,” inactive and passive, but in reality, Asian Americans have the potential to be whomever they want to become, he added.

“There are issues that Asian Americans face that sometimes we’re not comfortable talking about because we weren’t raised to be as vocal as we need to be,” Alexander said.

The house comes with many resources, including meeting rooms for student organizations, a spacious kitchen and a dedicated staff,” said Christina Chou, junior in LAS and external vice president of the Taiwanese American Student Club. The center’s responsibility is to promote Asian American culture, Chou added.

Asian American students advocated for an Asian American studies academic program and cultural house for decades. It was five years ago, however, when the University agreed to spend approximately $1.3 million in creating the center as an attachment to the Asian American studies academic program, Chih said.

“Other cultural centers have been around for more than 30 years,” Chih said. “This cultural center had to wait 30-plus years.

In the past two years, the center has doubled its number of programs and visitors. In the center’s second year alone, there were more than 16,000 visits and more than 900 meetings and events that took place, Chih said.

However, despite the success of the center, there is a concern that Asian American students self-segregate, Alexander said. An issue with the Asian American students is their inactive role in interacting with individuals of other cultures. Students must take the initiative to learn about students from other cultures, he added

“It’s a comfort situation,” Alexander said. “There’s nothing wrong with that, but the only problem is that we have to be able to progress beyond that.”

Another concern of the director and among students is the limited capacity of the building. Even though the house is the most recently established cultural center, its space is too small for the size of the Asian American student population, said Chih.

“It was always in the planning stage that someday we will need to expand the building,” Chih said.

For now, the cultural center serves as a place for all students to congregate and learn about Asian American culture.

“It’s a culture house, so that doesn’t mean it’s restricted to people just from within that culture,” Chou said. “Everyone is welcome.”