The first Asian Cultural Center at Iowa State opened its doors Monday.

The creation of the center rests on the underlying principle of promoting racial diversity — not creating racial separatism.

Teresa Thomas, former president of Asian Pacific American Awareness Coalition, said the AACC will be a place where all ethnicities are welcome to be educated, informed and enriched.

Thomas said the process of creating the AACC has been long and hard.

“We had started this process last January, and we had hoped it would be completed by the first-annual Asian heritage week last spring, but it had been postponed by the administration for a while,” Rafael Rodriguez, director for Minority Student Affairs, said.

Veng Lee, current president of APACC, said putting the center together has been a lot of hard work.

“It all started one year ago, and the university was a little slow to respond to the idea, so it was put on the back burner for a while,” Lee said. “But now that we have it, we are glad we do, and we expect to use the place to the fullest, because we put [in] a lot of hard work and effort and went through a lot to get it.”

Bao Thao, adviser for APAAC and Laos Taidam Student Association, said Veng and Grif Kolberg, interim president and vice president for APACC, did a lot to help move the project along.

A ceremony was held with introductions by Mai Ung, center representative for APAAC, and a welcome speech by Rodriguez. Also, a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held to commemorate the opening.

Thao said the turnout for the opening ceremony was “pretty good.”

“The turnout was at about 50 people,” Thao said. “And given the fact that the location is just two dorm rooms put together, that’s pretty good.”

The center is actually a joint venture by APAAC, LTSA and the Vietnamese Student Association. However, APAAC was at the forefront of the process of putting it together.

“Our go-between was actually APAAC,” Lang Tran, president of VSA, said. “If it hadn’t been for APAAC, none of this could have happened.”

The presidents of the three organizations are optimistic about the center’s future and its ability to serve its purposes.

“It is a place to have common ground with other organizations. It is a great place to get everyone together in a central location,” Hoang said.

Tran agreed with Hoang. “It is a great achievement for Asian Americans on campus,” Tran said. “I would encourage everyone to attend. It is a place of learning about Asian culture, and we hope students of all races and places will utilize it.”

“I feel very optimistic about the center because it provides a central place where Asian Americans can meet, and it provides a resource where anyone can learn about Asian and Asian American culture and history,” Thao said. “I want to stress that the university is working hard toward promoting diversity on this campus, and this is a big step toward achieving that.”

Not only will students get to look at the displays of Asian art and artifacts, but there are also fun activities planned as well.

“The first activity will be the art of an Asian Culture Film Series. The first movie will be Thursday, Oct. 16, at 7 p.m. in the cultural center,” Thao said.

The center is open to all students and is located at 1501 Helser Hall. If students would like to use the facility, they should contact Thao at 294-6338