At the time of her move to New York, Mulcare was fifty-four years old. Securing employment at that age was likely difficult, though as a seamstress she had more flexible employment options. Mulcare was also the widow of a reverend in La Boca (John Talbert Mulcare) and may have secured financial assistance from US-based members of her church community. Mulcare had her daughters in mind when she chose to migrate. Ann Rose (her namesake) and Louisa made the journey to New York with her and celebrated their twentieth and eighteenth birthdays in 1946. Both had been trained as typists. Finding employment in New York as bilingual typists—both Ann Rose and Louisa also declared English and Spanish as their languages—likely offered more stable options than the seamstress business.
The Mulcares’ travel to New York fit a pattern that would become more pronounced among Afro-Caribbean Panamanians by the 1950s. Many chose to make Brooklyn their new residence. Before this, in the immediate post– canal construction period, migration from Panama to Harlem was the norm. In Harlem migrants like Maida Springer, Kenneth B. Clark, and Guyanese-born and Panama-raised Eric Walrond made their international careers in labor organizing, psychology and social service, literature, and civic organizing. By the early 1940s some Panamanians already lived in Brooklyn, among them Anesta Samuel’s relatives and successful entrepreneurs such as Ethelbert Anderson, a neighborhood association developed. The bulk of the women who formed and joined Las Servidoras in the 1950s were all Brooklyn residents.
Why then did Brooklyn become a communal space for Las Servidoras and other Afro-Caribbean Panamanians? One answer lay in the growth of Brooklyn as a Black urban center by the 1940s. Black southerners, Black migrants from outside the United States, and Black people born in New York formed part of this urban community. The completion of subway lines connecting central Brooklyn to Manhattan in the late 1930s facilitated this demographic trend. Prior to these subway lines, most people of African descent in New York chose to live in Manhattan, mostly in Harlem. With eased commuter options, Brooklyn became a borough of interest. By 1940 Brooklyn also offered cheaper rents and more home ownership opportunities than Harlem or Manhattan as a whole. For the founders and the future members of Las Servidoras, home ownership was especially important. By law, no one in the Canal Zone could own property since all land came under the purview of the US government. In Panamá and Colón, rampant overcrowding made the possibility of owning a home very difficult. Those seeking home ownership also had to find a way to finance and build their residences.