Sorting through the materials of my grandparents’ home following their deaths, I discovered a carefully saved victory card from the 1972 Nixon presidential campaign, sent to my grandmother in recognition of her fundraising efforts for the Republican National Committee in California. Opening the card, I faced meticulously posed photographs of the Nixon and Reagan families. My grandparents were staunch Republicans, and this particular item, more than any other object in their home, encapsulates my fraught experience trying to reconcile the love they showed me with their support of anti-LGBT politicians.

Reconstructing the 1972 victory card, this image confronts my personal relationship with my grandparents and the history of gay politics, particularly the silence of the Reagan administration throughout the AIDS crisis.

A Queer Culinary Invitation: Pat Nixon’s Meatloaf