Many books have been written about the hardships, romances, and accomplishments of the immigrants that today populate non-Spanish North America. For me there has always been a question about the heritage of the people who predominate the land south of the Mexican border. The story of Alvaraz is a fictional story written after I visited several museums in Mexico and one day read a plaque at the end of the beach in Barra de Navidad thanking the people of Mexico for building ships for the people of the Philippines. The following is a purely fictitious story of a ship builder with the name of Alvarez who struggled against overwhelming odds, has countless adventures, romances and heartbreak while he accomplished his goal of building ships in Mexico.