Joseph Assi was born in a Christian refugee camp in Lebanon and spent his entire life there until he was chosen to be a cast member of the second season of “On the Road in America,” a documentary-reality TV series about four young Middle Easterners traveling across the U.S. by RV. (On the Road in America, Season II, will air next year.)

Traveling to the United States this summer was the first time he had been on a plane or left Lebanon. His grandfather came to the camp 64 years ago and his father was also born in the camp.

I recently sat down with Joseph to talk about some of his impressions of America and the world prior to the show and what he had learned from traveling around the United States.

His impressions of the United States were not very favorable before the show:

“America prior to the show is the enemy in disguise because our first enemy is Israel and the enemy behind that is America because America is giving money to Israel, is giving weapons to Israel . . . and supporting all kind of acts that Israel does.

During the show, Joseph befriended Guy Livneh, an Israeli Jew and one of the crew members, something he never anticipated would happen:

“I never expected to be friends with an Israeli. And I always thought that Israeli is an enemy and the only way to talk with an Israeli is through a bullet. And that changed really fast; that changed in less than a month because meeting Guy, seeing how much we are similar, seeing how nice he . . . I stopped being able to remember him as an Israeli, I started remembering him as a human, as an artist, as a friend. An Israeli wasn’t his only description; it became, it became a secondary thing.”

Watch the video for the rest of the interview.