The Women of El Toro (xtine burrough and Dan Sutko) pairs stories told by female veterans and military wives stationed at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro with locations on the same ground, in the Orange County Great Park. Originally recorded by the Center for Oral and Public History from 2007-13, these stories are now made available in a free iOS app to bring the voices of the women whose experiences in or with the Marines to visitors at Great Park locations. In broader terms, Dan and I are excited about the poetic way that The Women of El Toro lies at the intersection of locative GPS technology, digital oral histories of female veterans, and digital humanities work emphasizing the creation of new human experiences through new media, space, and place.
If you are planning to attend, please download the app on a trusted wifi connection before arriving at the park and find us in front of the Visitors Center!
We hope to see you this Friday, where our special guests include some of the women whose voices are embedded in the app.
Dan and I would like to extend our gratitude to California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. This project is the result of a Community Stories grant, 2015-16.