J. Osorio's article, Gazing Back: Communing with our Ancestors, began with a tribute to David Hanlon who was a teacher and an inspiring and important figure in The Life of Osorio. For me, reading this article was very moving, inspiring, and a microcosm of an entire semester of accumulating knowledge and perspectives on a culture that I have lived with my entire life but never completely understood. I don't know if comparing my appreciation for Professor Osorio to that of David Hanlon is worthy praise, because Hanlon influenced Osorio's entire life, but I do know that I have never believed more in the spirit of contemplation of a culture so far and I took six weeks of Hawaiian studies courses. Reading this article made me feel guilty, as I did several times during this course. Growing up as a white child in Kahuku, I always felt that I was not an ignorant and stupid Haole people in my understanding of “native issues” – I believed that I had been instilled with the values ​​of respect of our 'aina and my desire. Understanding 'olelo Hawaii was a characteristic that set me apart from my peers. As a teenager, I always had more respect for the local population and minorities. In fact, for me, white people never helped me become an adult. The people who hurt me the most were my white parents and the people who didn't help me when I needed it most were my uptight, rich white family. The people who were there for me as I struggled not only with adolescence, but also with abusive parents and substance abuse in all facets of my nuclear and extended family – were Hawaiian and Filipino families. These were people from a community that depended on the Kahuku sugar plantations. My family wasn't my mom and dad, my family was a community of people who were there for me and treated me like their own. I never liked being white. What pride there is in being part of a culture that conquered and destroyed almost every other civilization on the planet in the name of a merciless God. I felt set apart by my ethnicity and always wished I could be dark, be something other than what I am – and I managed to feel that way for a long time..