A recent letter writer asks how Asians feel about fireworks, implying we should dislike them because they have had no other association throughout history than wanton American killing of Asians.

This Asian feels absolutely great about American fireworks. And about Blue Angels’ jet noise too. Maybe not warm and cozy, but definitely safe, and alive.

Many of the Asians in King County wouldn’t be here – or anywhere – without the American strength they represent. American firepower saved far more Asians than it killed.

My ancestors survived World War II in southern China. My parents, as young children, saw many of their friends dead on the streets, killed by Japanese soldiers. If it weren’t for American firepower, the Imperial Japanese Army likely would’ve massacred them and millions more, repeating the 1937 “Rape of Nanking” in dozens of cities. I hear no disapproval of that from the letter writer.

Fireworks were invented in China, 600-700 years before there even was a white America. Asian-on-Asian war casualties, in terms of percentage of population, go back thousands of years before that and far exceed the rates of any war America has been involved in. There certainly were fireworks celebrating Chinese victories. I hear no disapproval of that from the letter writer.

The Communist Chinese, who would’ve killed my grandparents if the Japanese didn’t, killed somewhere between 10 and 50 million of their fellow countrymen for purely political reasons. I hear no disapproval of that from the letter writer.

Pol Pot killed one-third of his country. The north Vietnamese, after defeating the south and then defeating the Viet Cong – and throw in a short war against China in 1979 – killed hundreds of thousands.

Captured female soldiers were subjected to unspeakably and gratuitously violent and demeaning tortures such as being formed into chain gangs by stringing barbed wire through their female parts. I hear no disapproval of that from the letter writer.

The writer might not like the sound of fireworks, but I imagine he’d much more dislike the sounds of friends screaming from enemy gunshot wounds outside his doorstep like my parents heard, of enemy planes and exploding enemy bombs in his neighborhood, and of enemy firing squads executing him for criticizing their fireworks.

I gratefully celebrate the sounds honoring those American service members who protect him from those fates that killed far more Asians than Americans did.

K-Y Su, Kirkland