Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Enemy Alien: Tamio Wakayama

Enemy Alien: Tamio Wakayama

Wong, Paul
Wakayama, Tamio
Respini, Eva

Hardcover

Series: Vancouver Art Gallery

ArtistsGeneral ArtGeneral Photography

Publisher Price: $40.00

ISBN10: 1773272802
ISBN13: 9781773272801
Publisher: Figure 1 Publishing
Published: Oct 21 2025
Pages: 288
Weight: 2.80
Height: 1.10 Width: 8.00 Depth: 10.00
Language: English
Finalist for the 2026 Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize, BC & Yukon Book Prizes

The first publication devoted to Tamio Wakayama's remarkable photographic career, Enemy Alien shares unpublished photos and a memoir by the artist about his life working alongside activist movements and in vibrant communities, from the civil rights-era American South to the Powell Street Festival in Vancouver.

Wakayama was born in New Westminster, British Columbia mere months before Pearl Harbor and was soon forcibly relocated with his parents to an internment camp for Japanese Canadians. This early childhood experience of injustice would shape the rest of his life and practice. Later, as a young man, Wakayama was vacationing in Tennessee when the Birmingham Church Bombing happened; inspired by a deep sympathy for the activists, he drove straight to Birmingham, met John Lewis, and began working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Atlanta, first as a cleaner and driver and soon as a photographer. For two years Wakayama produced campaign material and documented SNCC activists and actions in Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama, including the 1964 Freedom Summer. After leaving the US, he photographed Indigenous and Doukhobor communities in Canada, everyday life in Japan and Cuba, and finally settled in Vancouver, where he joined the resurging Nikkei community and the Redress Movement, and for decades photographed the Powell Street Festival.


Also in

General Photography

View All