The View’s Alyssa Farah Griffin reveals heartbreaking struggles of being an Arab American – despite being counted as ‘white’ on US Census: ‘Culturally we’re treated as brown’

Alyssa Farah Griffin has spoken about the difficulties she faces as an Arab-American in the US, where she is ‘culturally treated as brown’ – but has to mark herself as white on the census form.

Host Vieva, 34, who sees herself as ‘American first’, said she was ‘proud’ of her heritage, which is a mixture of Lebanese and Syrian from her father Joseph Farah and Ukrainian and Polish from her mother, Judi.

Alyssa discussed her mixed heritage on the latest episode of The View: Behind the Table podcast, and executive producer Brian Teta asked if she ‘ever struggled with her identity’.

“Someone joked and said, ‘You’re really hitting every conflict zone with your makeup!'” I’m really proud of my Arab heritage,” she said.

“But being Arab-American is kind of weird.” There’s no box for us on the US census, so I usually just check white, but culturally we’re treated as brown, while technically we’re treated as white.’

She recalled dealing with increased scrutiny of her name in the years immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but said she has now learned to feel proud of her heritage.

“It’s a dark joke I made in my family, but we used to say, ‘add Farah 15 when you go to the airport,’ because if you had an Arabic last name in the post-9/11 era, there was a long time when it was like, ‘you’re going to get an extra review, you get an extra review,” she said.

“I dealt with it a lot more – or felt it a lot more – probably 10 or 15 years ago … now it’s something I’m proud of, but it makes me really engaged in the region, and caring about it a lot more.” And it gives me a perspective that informs my viewpoints on the world.’

The former White House strategic communications director also opened up about her “broken heart” for those living in war-torn Syria and said she wants to use her voice to “advocate” for those affected.

She continued, “I’m an American first, but I want to see the good in the part of the world that my family came from and it’s been so many years of heartbreak, especially in Syria.

“I was in the Ministry of Defense when Turkey invaded Syria and countless Syrian Kurds were killed and it was exhausting to see that period and to know that just a few different life events brought me somewhere completely different, safe and protected from that.”

“People who look like me, who sound like me, live in such a different and heartbreaking world, so I always want to use my voice to advocate for people in those parts of the world who have just gone through so many different iterations of the collapse of terrorism.’

Alyssa, whose family was Christian Arab and Muslim, said when she worked for the White House that she would ‘talk about the evils of terrorism’ but ‘separate them from the vast majority of the Muslim population who are peaceful… good people’.

Alyssa said she didn’t really “talk about (her heritage) much” on The View unless it “entered the conversation.”

But she opened up about her father on the show last year, revealing why he didn’t show up to her 2021 wedding to Justin Griffin.

The brunette confirmed it conservative father and stepmother Elizabeth Graham “did not want to attend” her wedding after she publicly criticized former President Donald Trump – for whom she once worked.

Alyssa said at the time: “I just got married in November, and this is such a difficult subject, so keep two things in mind: COVID has forced people to cut down on their friend groups, their families. People are not next to each other if they are not open to vaccination. Add to that political polarization.’

“In my situation, personally, I had to deal with two people very close to me, my father and my stepmother, who did not want to attend my wedding,” she added.

When her co-host Joy Behar asked why they skipped the event, Alyssa blamed it on “political differences after I spoke out against President Trump.”

Alyssa and Justin were married at Windsor Properties, a private sports club in Vero Beach, Florida. She noted that the family feud was one-sided and was not something she was willing to ruin her wedding day for.

‘The answer was simple. Like, I love them. They were welcome to be there by my side,” she explained. ‘But if they didn’t want to be there, why would I interrupt my special day trying to get them there?’

Her father, Joseph, is the founder of the conservative news and conspiracy website WorldNetDaily, which he launched in 1997, serving as both editor-in-chief and CEO.

Alyssa served as White House communications director for eight months under Trump when she resigned in December 2020, a month before he left office.

She also served in several other administration roles before that, including press secretary to then-Vice President Mike Pence and Pentagon press secretary before returning to the White House.

After submitting her resignation on December 3, 2020, Alyssa tweeted: “It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve in the Trump Administration for the past 3 1/2 years, first as Press Secretary to @VP Pence and then as Press Secretary for the @DeptofDefense , and most recently as White House communications director.’

At the time, the president – along with his lawyer Rudy Giuliani – launched several legal disputes related to the outcome of the presidential election.

A month after Alice resigned, Trump held his infamous rally outside the White House on January 6, 2020 – the day Congress moved to confirm the election of Joe Biden and crowds of his supporters stormed the US Capitol to stop them from doing so. . .

Alyssa was quick to condemn the attack after publicly condemning Trump supporters for harassing Mitt Romney the previous day.

On January 8, 2021, she blamed Trump for fomenting the rebellion and suggested he resign as the House of Representatives moved to impeach the outgoing president for the second time in his administration.

Alyssa did not specify what she said about Trump that angered her father and stepmother enough to skip her wedding.