"Alvarez was born Asghar Ghahraman on a farm in Iran, in 1933. His mother died when he was only a few weeks old. The boy's father sent him to live with his teenage sister in Tehran, where Alvarez would play outside watching neighbors go about their days. Often left to fend for himself, he remembers a big moment when, "I asked a young boy, 'where are you going?' He said, 'School, you learn a lot of things.' So I followed him.""
"Eventually, the promise of meals a day and more money attracted Alvarez to the Iranian Navy. He signed up and was assigned to work on a ship's boiler belowdecks. Less than a decade later, Alvarez was over life in the Navy. "I stayed on that ship 9 years. I want to jump, I want to get out," says Alvarez. He'd get his chance when his ship docked in Norfol1k, Virginia."
"Alvarez "jumped ship" the night before his ship was scheduled to leave Virginia and bought a bus ticket to Miami. He needed a new life and a job but didn't have the legal documentation. That's when Asghar Ghahraman started going by "Ramon Alvarez." Before long he was on a bus to New York City with only $7 left to his name."
"Ray struck out looking for jobs at bars and restaurants when he first arrived. An employment agency placed him at a tennis club where Alvarez excelled and worked for the next ten years. Alvarez says things went south when his manager blackmailed him over his citizenship status. "One day he said, 'you know what... Immigration! They come with handcuffs and send you to your country. But if I give him $5,000 (he) don't call no immigration,""
Ray Alvarez was born Asghar Ghahraman in Iran in 1933 and lost his mother early. His father sent him to live with a teenage sister in Tehran, where he attended school before being pulled out to work in a factory for 79 cents per week. Hunger and low pay drove him to join the Iranian Navy, where he worked belowdecks on a ship's boiler for nine years. Alvarez deserted when his ship docked in Norfolk, adopted the name Ramon Alvarez, and traveled to New York via Miami with seven dollars. He worked at a tennis club for ten years, faced blackmail over his citizenship, and bought Ray's Candy Store in 1974.
Read at ABC7 Los Angeles
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