why WE EXIST
Founded by a Palestinian writer who was forced to reckon with the increasing suppression of BIPOC and other marginalized voices, both within her community in Denver and across borders to a homeland being erased from maps.
It became too dangerous to ignore. So, after working for nearly a decade in Finance and Tech, she left her career to fully commit to building the kind of space our community deserves.
-
My dog was snoring in the corner.
My computer was balanced on my lap as an incessant tide of Slack notifications eroded my sanity.
It was a day like any other, doing what I'd done for most of my adult life:
helping the rich get richer.
A few coworkers retreated into my refuge and asked, “How’re you holding up?"
At Robinhood, we didn't really ask each other "how are you?"
We were all hanging by a thread, and we all knew it.
But that afternoon, I didn’t offer the daily trauma-dump of our toxic work culture. Instead, I asked a question.
"This new spot just popped up in RiNo that's basically a reverse speakeasy. Its a concept café with rotating immigrant vendors in the front, a publishing house and a banned bookstore in the back. They host community workshops and sell local artwork - and its all done with BIPOC creatives. What do you think? Would you go to a spot like that?”
Before I could even finish, one of them collected their jaw to gasp “Hell yeah, that's dope! We’ve needed that in Denver, especially now with all that’s happening politically. What’s it called?"
I paused.
"Umm... Prohibition Press."
As they reached to their back pocket to grab their phone and look it up on Google Maps, I shattered the excitement with reality:
"Actually, it doesn't exist. But it really should."
What felt like a momentary fantasy, a daydream in the life of someone chained to corporate tech for survival, refused to fade.
Everywhere I looked, space for BIPOC and immigrant creators was shrinking.
Books showcasing the perils of fascism were being banned.
Arab artists were being asked to soften their exhibitions so as not to offend Zionists.
Western journalism grew increasingly sanitized and writers from Palestinian, immigrant, working-class, and marginalized communities were being told more and more that their stories would be marketable if only they were simply less themselves.
Meanwhile, I was spending my days hiding inside conference rooms, helping build products for people whose values I protested against and collecting paychecks cut to bankroll the genocide of my homeland.
-
For a third-culture daughter of Palestinian parents in the diaspora, success in America was assimilation. And I was programmed to measure success by proximity to power.
I swallowed the colonizer’s fallacy that self-worth is defined by a fancier title, a fatter paycheck, a bigger project, and a seat at the big boys’ table on the top floor of a gaudy high-rise.
As I stared at the crayon sprawled eagle on the projector screen, I knew I spent far too long confusing success with survival.
I went back to my hotel room, puked bile.
The I began drafting my resignation.
-
But like so many of us, I convinced myself I couldn’t survive in this system if I wasn’t making good money.
I convinced myself that pushing back where I could from the inside was enough. I fought against decisions that catered to white nationalism. I spoke up when it would've been easier to stay quiet.
I convinced myself that while I was stuck as a pawn in the very system responsible for my family’s displacement, but at least I was defying the current where I could.
In February 2026, the facade of my rationalizations shattered as I sat in another blurred glass office.This time, I was shackled to a black walnut conference table in a Chicago high-rise, surrounded by the rancid air of ego I often avoided.
A selected few of us had been flown in on a moment’s notice to convene about a high-profile, confidential project. The meeting kicked off, and the unmistakable neon-orange caricature of the President filled the projector screen under a crayon-styled headline that read: “Jumpstarting the American Dream!”
Every cell in my body revolted. My lungs seized and my chest locked tight.
I looked around the room.
There were probably twenty of us around the conference table.
And I was the only visibly distressed person in the room.
Holy shit.
And I was the only brown person in the room.
What was a Palestinian woman doing sitting at a table of fintech bros as they gawked excitedly at my colonizer's benefactor?
The blood of my ancestors surged through my anatomy, unshackled my lungs, and drew breath through me. I quickly understood that our survival was at stake as long as I stayed in that room.
-
Three months later, Prohibition Press refracted from the shards of my wreckage. What was once a daydream was now a dire necessity taking its first breath as an unapologetic reality.
Giving emerging BIPOC and immigrant writers a platform to share their raw, authentic voices is where we’re starting.
We’re building toward a permanent physical cultural space for cultural resistance through books, art and community.
Because sitting at their table is how we dissolve into their background and submit to their erasure.
Our stories demand their own space.
Prohibition Press exists to hold it.
CONNECT WITH US
Not ready to publish?
We'd still love to hear from you! Whether you have questions, are interested in partnership opportunities, or simply want to drop a line, fill out the form below or just email us directly at info@prohibition-press.com.