AAPI Heritage Month Spotlight: Meet Alia Liumith

May is AAPI Heritage Month, a time to celebrate the rich culture, history, and contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States.?Effectus Group ?recognizes the immense value that our AAPI colleagues and clients bring to our organization and communities. In this spotlight series, we would like to introduce a few of our AAPI colleagues.

Today we are honored to spotlight? Alia Liumith, CPA, PMP , a Senior Associate in our RAS Practice.

Q: How do you identify within the Asian American and Pacific Islander community?

A: Chinese

Q: How has your heritage shaped the person you are today?

A: My heritage plays a significant role in shaping my identity. I have always felt a strong connection to my family’s cultural traditions and values. Growing up, I was raised to always look after family members, even extended family members, and I was also taught that one chopstick is easy to be broken, while ten chopsticks are hard to break, which means the power of a united group is greater than any individuals and as a family; we should always stick together.

Q: Does your family have any traditions that are especially important to you?

A: Chinese New Year is the most important tradition we celebrate. It is a time for families to come together, to honor ancestors and deities and to celebrate the beginning of a new year. It is a time for joy, festivities and renewal.

Q: What challenges have you faced as an Asian-American/Pacific Islander in the workplace? How have you overcome those challenges?

A: In the workplace, having similar interests or at least a good understanding of the cultural social events such as football is one of the key factors for building relationships with your clients and colleagues. However, growing up in a completely different culture definitely makes it hard to build those relationships. To overcome those challenges, I spent time to understand the social cultures such as following sports here (and ended up enjoying it too!), participating in festivals/events, and making local friends.

Q: What would you like others to know about AAPI Heritage Month?

A: For AAPI Heritage Month, I want to encourage others to learn about the Chinese language because it’s really fun; Chinese language is one of the oldest and most complex languages in the world, with a history spanning over 5,000 years. What makes it particularly interesting is its writing system. Chinese characters are composed of strokes that are combined in various ways to form words and sentences. And some characters can have very fun relations to each other. For example: 木 means wood,?林 (Two wood) means woods and 森 (three wood) means forest. ??