The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC) is a migratory museum that shares Asian Pacific American history, art, and culture through innovative museum experiences online and throughout the U.S through the Smithsonian Institution's work.
[1] The center was established in 1997 and does not feature a museum building for public display; instead, the institution manifests its work through community engagement.
[3] In 1997, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center established an advisory group headed by Norman Y. Mineta with a mandate to research, deliberate, and then report to Secretary I. Michael Heyman on the Institution's ability to increase and diffuse knowledge about the nation's richly diverse APA communities.
Since its inception, the Smithsonian’s APA Program has sponsored more than a dozen successful exhibitions featuring Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Indian and Vietnamese Americans, to name a few ethnic groups.
[4] In 2017, the institution published the "Culture Lab Manifesto," which highlights its mission to provide a glimpse into "experiential friction between guests and hosts, history and future.