SAT Text Structure and Purpose Question

Founded in Denver in 1991, the Museo de Las Americas is one of the best-known US based institutions showcasing Latino cultures. Since its founding, it has acquired more than 4,800 objects for its permanent collection. Since 2000, the number of Latino cultural institutions in the US has expanded considerably, LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, which opened in Los Angeles in 2011 and focuses on Mexican American art and culture, is among the most prominent. Which choice best states the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?