Diné serving as Japanese consul for N.M.
By Noel Lyn Smith
Navajo Times
WINDOW ROCK, April 2, 2011
Davis Begay
Begay, who is Kinyaa'áanii (Towering House Clan), born for Ta'neeszahnii (Tangle Clan), said online scams are being run in the wake of the Japanese crisis, just as they did after Hurricane Katrina and the Haiti earthquake.
He encouraged people to make their donations to well-established organizations like the American Red Cross or the Japan Red Cross.
Information about donating to the Japanese relief effort can be found on Begay's Web site, www.jpnconsulalbuq.com.
Begay, whose wife is Japanese, was at home in Albuquerque when he first heard the news about the devastation that hit Japan.
Earthquakes are common in Japan and anything below a 4 is not big news but as measurements of the magnitude climbed, Begay's concern grew.
"When it got to 7 then 8, I knew it was a serious earthquake," he said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
Then came the tsunami, which devastated a large section of coastline on the main island of Honshu.
He watched the news on NHK World, an English-language television service that broadcasts news from Japan and Asia, and saw a lot of the devastation before it was shown in America.
After news about the earthquake and tsunami spread, Begay started receiving calls from people looking to help Japan and to locate friends and family who have not been heard from since then.
The original death toll was estimated at a few dozen but at press time the confirmed count was over 11,000 dead with more than 27,000 still missing. Close to 200,000 homes and buildings were destroyed and over 150,000 people are safe but living in refugee shelters.
Begay can sympathize with people worried about a loved one. He has a friend in the area affected by the tsunami whom he has not been able to contact. He's pretty sure the silence results from the loss of telephone and cell phone communication there, rather than harm to the friend.
Begay was invited by Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs to serve as the honorary consul general for New Mexico in April 2009. His wife Ikuko serves as a liaison officer in the same office.
His official duties include assisting Japanese nationals living in New Mexico with work or school and to assist local governments in coordinating with the Japanese government or businesses.
Begay's service with the Japanese government spans more than 20 years.
Back in the 1980s Begay and his wife were appointed liaison officers under the jurisdiction of the Japanese Consulate General in Los Angeles.
When a consulate general office opened in Denver in 1999, the Begays were transferred there and served four states.
"Not every state has a consul general," he explained. "It depends on what is needed in each state."
Begay said he has traveled to Japan more than 20 times over the past two decades. His contact with the country began when he was a Marine and was stationed there for a year in the late 1960s.
"The Japanese culture is similar to the Navajo culture," he said, and many Japanese people want to visit the Navajo Nation.
Throughout the years, Begay has helped visiting Japanese with information about the Navajo Nation, and has helped documentary film crews obtain tribal permits to film there.
Begay, 64, is retired from Sandia National Laboratory, where he was a technician.
He is a grandson of former tribal Chairman Paul Jones and said watching his grandfather meet such men as Sen. Barry Goldwater and Interior Secretary Stewart Udall gave Begay a "taste of politics" and set the stage for his interest in public service.