Asia Pacific Cultural Center: A Cultural Hub in the Pacific Northwest

The moment you walk into the Asia Pacific Cultural Center’s new building in Tacoma, Washington, the story begins before anyone says a word. Artifacts, symbols, and cultural markers from 47 nations fill the space — making visible the communities, histories, and identities the center was built to honor.

When Executive Director Faaluaina Pritchard walks through the doors of the new Asia Pacific Cultural Center (APCC), she sees more than a building. She sees the stories, cultures, and identities of dozens of communities reflected back to her.

"The minute you walk in the building you see all the different 47 nations that it represents," she says. "The tears start rolling with great pride."

That feeling of pride and belonging was at the heart of the Asia Pacific Cultural Center's new 18,500-square-foot cultural center in Tacoma. [demographic datapoint] The facility now serves Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities from across the Pacific Northwest. The project transformed a long-held community vision into a permanent home for culture, education, celebration, and connection. For APCC, the building is the brick and mortar for a different type of building, the building and understanding of identity among Washington's rich, diverse, Asian and Pasifika communities.

Built by a Community, for a Community

According to Pritchard, the new center is proof of what can happen when a community works toward a shared goal. "The AANHPI community as a whole played a huge part in building this community cultural center," she says. "It took the entire community to do this building." Over the course of the campaign, APCC raised approximately $18 million through a combination of individual donors, philanthropic institutions, and public funding partners. The completed facility includes classrooms, offices, a commercial kitchen, a library, dance studio, art gallery, Hall of Nations, and a large auditorium designed for performances, cultural celebrations, and educational programming.

The project also demonstrated APCC's unique strength: its ability to bring people together across cultures, generations, and communities. As Pritchard describes it, APCC serves as a trusted messenger and gathering place where people learn from one another, support one another, and find collective strength. "APCC brings people together," she says. "To share and learn from each other, to help one another, to give grace and love for one another."

A Place to Learn, Share, and Belong

For Mia Slattum, an Okinawan community leader and taiko performer, APCC has long been a place of cultural discovery. One of her earliest experiences with APCC involved learning traditional Okinawan cooking, deepening her connection to her own heritage while creating opportunities to learn from others.

"I tell people APCC can be your learning place for cultures," she says. Slattum helps lead a range of Okinawan activities at the community center. "We are so grateful to have our space for our big taiko drums and our big, wonderful noise."

Bustling with activity, the center provides room for performances, classes, community gatherings, and cultural celebrations that previously had no permanent home. While critically important to community well-being, the center is not only a space for fun events, t’s also a practical service provider for the community, including allowing for a new partnership with an elder-care facility, which was not possible prior to the new building, which was designed for ADA compliance and these sorts of future partnerships.

A Home Away From Home

For many community members, the building represents something even more personal.

Emma Caintic, a Filipino community leader and Board-at-Large member with the Filipino Seniors of Pierce County, describes APCC as "a home away from home." Every week, Filipino elders gather to celebrate birthdays, dance, sing karaoke, play bingo, and simply spend time together. The space helps reduce loneliness and isolation by creating opportunities for connection and friendship.

Caintic still remembers attending her first gathering in 2016. "The first day of my visit I observed so much laughter and a friendly welcome," she recalls. The experience was so meaningful that she quickly became an active member and eventually served in leadership roles within the organization. Spaces like APCC create opportunities not for a single connection, but to build a network of connectedness that reverberates through the community. Her story reflects a broader truth about APCC: culturally significant third spaces spaces do far more than preserve traditions. They create relationships, nurture well-being, and help people find community.

Preserving Culture for Future Generations

For Joel Larimer, founder of Guma' Imahe and a Guamanian/Chamorro community leader, the building's greatest impact may be on the next generation. "The new APCC building represents a permanent home for culture, education, and community," he says.

He imagines a young Chamorro child attending a cultural event, hearing their language spoken, watching traditional dances, and seeing their heritage celebrated and passed on to be preserved by the next generation.

"For some children, it may be the first time they truly feel connected to their heritage," Larimer says. Moments like those are what APCC was built to create. By providing a permanent space where communities can gather, teach, celebrate, and share their traditions, the organization is helping ensure that cultural knowledge is passed from one generation to the next.

One Heart, One Home

The building stands as a symbol of what collective action can accomplish.

"It showed how something big and valuable can be completed when everyone works together," says Pritchard. "When we all have a good heart for one another and work toward a goal that benefits all of us."

Today, APCC's new cultural center is exactly that: a place built by many communities, for many communities. A third space in the heart of Pierce County that reaches people from all walks of life with events, programs, and experiences that celebrate that we make up a culturally diverse community, city, state, and country. And we want it to stay that way.