On any given weekday during the academic year, North Central University community members gather in the Lindquist Sanctuary for daily chapel. Conversation and laughter permeate the room before the worship service.
Toward the front of the sanctuary, you may notice a small group that is animated but quiet, and you pick up on the fact that they are communicating in sign language. You see laughter and camaraderie among the American Sign Language (ASL) students and several faculty members.
Some in the group can hear, some are hard of hearing, and some have profound hearing loss. All of them belong at North Central.
As the worship team takes the stage and the music begins, an ASL interpreter stands toward the center of the stage, ready to interpret the words and music of the worship songs and that day’s sermon so that everyone in the room can experience worship together.
For Regina Daniels, M.A., Associate Professor and Director of the Carlstrom ASL-Interpreting Department, the time in chapel is sacred and beautiful and represents a cornerstone of her transformative experience at North Central as a faculty member.
It runs in the family
Daniels has been hard of hearing since birth. She grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana, with her mother and sister, who are deaf. “We’re actually the fifth generation deaf in our family,” Daniels said in a live interview interpreted by Leah Russ ’20. “Our great-great-great-great grandmother on our mother’s side was an enslaved person from Congo, Africa, and she was deaf.”
The CDC says familial deafness is at play in 50 to 60 percent of babies who are born with hearing loss.
According to the World Health Organization:
A person who is not able to hear as well as someone with normal hearing – hearing thresholds of 20 dB or better in both ears – is said to have hearing loss. Hearing loss may be mild, moderate, severe, or profound. It can affect one ear or both ears, and leads to difficulty in hearing conversational speech or loud sounds.
‘Hard of hearing’ refers to people with hearing loss ranging from mild to severe. People who are hard of hearing usually communicate through spoken language and can benefit from hearing aids, cochlear implants, and other assistive devices as well as captioning.
‘Deaf’ people mostly have profound hearing loss, which implies very little or no hearing. They often use sign language for communication.
That’s who we are
Daniels has always been comfortable with being hard of hearing. Still, she acknowledges that in society as a whole, there is confusion about Deaf culture and what language to use when referring to individuals with hearing loss. Even within the Deaf community, the level of hearing loss can shape how an individual fits in.
“I grew up thinking, ‘Okay, I’m hard of hearing, but I’m proud of that; that’s my identity,” she said. “My sister is profoundly deaf and would refer to herself as a ‘big-D’ Deaf individual, and that’s her identity. Being big-D Deaf means you’re fully immersed in the Deaf community and Deaf culture, so if you’re hard of hearing [like me], you may be involved but still separate.”
There may not be complete agreement about the differences between “big D” and “little D” when referencing deaf individuals or Deaf culture, but Daniels is adamant about what language NOT to use: “We prefer the words’ hard of hearing’ or ‘deaf’ instead of ‘hearing impaired,'” she said. “Hearing impaired just means that in a sense, we’re broken, and we’re not broken. We don’t need to be fixed. We’re fine. We can drive, we can walk, we can run, we can do anything. Except we can’t hear, that’s the one thing. The word ‘impaired’ implies that we’re broken. People try to be politically correct and assume ‘hearing impaired’ is right, but hard-of-hearing is not offensive to us; that’s who we are.”
Early on, Daniels found herself straddling two worlds. She learned ASL and signed with many people in her life, but she could also lip-read and speak orally, so she was savvy in the hearing world, too.
A different kind of broken
Although she was at peace with her identity as a hard-of-hearing person and had already accomplished amazing things in her life, when Daniels came to North Central in 2017, she experienced doubt and uncertainty.
Filling faculty roles in the ASL Department was a challenge. Daniels admits that with her undergraduate degree in Dance and her master’s in Performance Arts Management, she was an unlikely candidate to teach ASL at a university.
Additionally, she admits that while she was raised in a Christian home and attended church growing up, her faith at that time felt like it was on shaky ground. But looking back, she does not doubt that God was very involved in her placement at North Central and how her story has played out since she came. The daily chapel experience was just one aspect of a metamorphosis she has experienced since coming to Minnesota.
“Talking about Jesus just brings tears to my eyes,” Daniels said. “Five years ago, before I came to NCU, I was in a pretty dark place.” Even though her mother had strong faith, Daniels recalled, “I was struggling.”
“My first year at NCU, I met Bill Ross [a former faculty member], and I worked so hard to understand what this was all about. I knew about Jesus and God, but it was at a surface level because when I grew up, I didn’t really know the people in the Bible.” This deficit was partly because ASL was her first language, and she had never been exposed to Bible stories delivered via ASL.
“Honestly, North Central actually opened the door for me and led me to be willing to learn,” Daniels said. “Everyone here has been so patient with me, “to just teach and educate—whether in chapel, in meetings, or at my church.”
Through Ross, Daniels was exposed to an ASL version of the Bible available on video. “When I watch that on a video screen and watch the Bible in sign language,” she said, “it becomes more clear than when I’m reading it on the page.”
No one was more surprised than Daniels herself when her spiritual journey led to her baptism this past Easter at Cedar Valley Church. “I just had this sense that God was telling me to do something,” Daniels explained. On her baptism day, she felt like someone was pulling her back. “I had to keep just persevering, and when I was finally baptized, all of that anxiety, all of that tension, it was just gone.”
New freedom
As a woman who is hard of hearing, speaks ASL, is Black, and is a Christian, Daniels has frequently felt uncertain about how she fits in. Christians are a minority in the Deaf community, and deaf people are a minority in the Black community. “I’m in the middle,” Daniels said. “There’s a very small percentage of other people like me. So, where do I have that safe space to be myself, to not have to accommodate and try to change who I am to fit what these other groups need? For me to find a balance or a way to allow myself to still be myself as a Black/Deaf/hard-of-hearing woman/Christian—I can’t please everyone. I can only be who I am.”
Even Daniels’ naturally friendly personality and outgoing nature have caused her to feel different. Still, she has found her freedom in Christ and is more dedicated than ever to being fully herself on all fronts.
“People have told me I’m too much for them,” Daniels said, “I heard that phrase over and over when I was growing up. My friendliness, my personality would shine; I would have this big smile on my face. And now, people expect me to act a certain way at age 45! People my age say, ‘You’re so different from us,’ and I’m saying, don’t let age stop you from doing everything you want to do. I have the heart of a kid! I just feel like every day is a new day; every day is fresh. That’s what makes me different from other people because I don’t like to see that sadness, that heavy spirit. That’s just not who I am. I want to show what I was born to do and who I was made to be in His image.
“I hid that for 15 years, and I’m saying, ‘No more. Let it out!'”
Feeling seen and heard
Daniels’ interests lead her to many adventures. At North Central, you’ll find her in the classroom, meeting with students, or interpreting in chapel. She frequently has people around her, and there is always laughter. In 2021, she was recognized as Faculty of the Year. You may see her dancing on TikTok, interpreting plays at the Guthrie Theater, working on her doctoral dissertation for St. Mary’s University, or being called upon to interpret briefings for the White House. She plays many roles and wears many hats.
Thomas Merton said, “The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise, we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
For Regina Daniels, there are two places where she feels ultimately seen, heard, and free to be perfectly herself: with her mom and sister and at North Central University.
“My mom and sister are like home to me,” Daniels said. “And North Central has become like a home to me. This department has given me home because they don’t see me as different but the same. We treat each other the same, even the hearing students. I feel that and value that; the care is there. This is like my home.”
