Gwen’s Take: Finding the real people at the heart of Washington’s debates

The interviewer wanted to know what it was like to live in “Mad Men” Washington, where women have no power and men rule the roost. I had no idea what he was talking about.

Once again, I was seeing how the rest of the world views the nation’s capital – albeit that part of the world inhabited by New York-based magazine writers. For so many, Washington is a place stuck in time – where a woman was never Speaker of the House, where a black man was never president, where a black woman was never mayor and where Latinos and Asians never held high cabinet posts.

This is, of course, not true. Not anymore. But that national cluelessness about Washington, DC can be forgiven. Just as many Americans are puzzled about what happens here, so too do many of the people who pull the levers of power seem so often oblivious to the impact of their debates.

That’s why it’s good every so often to get on a plane and search out the people at the heart of Washington debates.

This brought me last weekend to the fragrant kitchen of a small Mexican restaurant in Las Vegas. Our PBS NewsHour crew was there to talk about the impact Washington’s immigration debate was having on one family. The matriarch of the family, Susana Flores, opened the eatery six months ago. Her sister, Rocina Sandoval, would love to open a gift shop in the vacant storefront next door.

But Susana is a legal resident; Rocina is not. And their intertwined families represent the full range of the nation’s immigration debate — dreamers, activists, those at risk of immediate deportation and those temporarily protected under the nation’s shifting laws.

In Washington, the debate has centered largely on whether the president has the power to unilaterally allow millions of undocumented residents to remain in the country.

House Speaker John Boehner says President Obama’s actions have “poisoned the well” and made it difficult to come to an agreement on fixing a system Republicans as well as Democrats say has gone off the rails.

The White House responds that Republicans are more concerned with process than progress.

Even reaching a deal to beef up immigration controls at the nation’s borders — something both parties say they want — has become difficult. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) believes Congress should do more, and that a border security bill that just emerged from a House Committee “is a show horse, not a work horse.”

“For God’s sake, if we can’t unite around border security, what can we unite around?” said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

And this is just the disagreement among Republicans.

Meanwhile, Juan Salazar, who arrived in Nevada at the age of 7, is caught betwixt and between. He qualifies for protection under the Dream Act because he was brought to the country illegally through no action of his own. But his parents and other family members remain vulnerable.

“We need something where we’re fully protected, because who knows what’s going to happen when the president leaves and another president comes,” he told me.

As we prepared to leave, Juan’s mother and aunt — Rocina and Susana — approached me to thank me for coming. With relatives translating her words from Spanish to English, tears sprang into her eyes as she told me how important it was to tell her family’s story.

Then she hugged me.

The next day, I flew back to Washington, where the debate about their lives rages on, with no end in sight.