BLACKBALL, New Zealand—“Humor From My Pen,” an exhibition of cartoons by Gerardo Hernández, was opened here Oct. 22 by María del Carmen Herrera Caseiro, the Cuban ambassador to New Zealand. The opening was one of the events in the West Coast town celebrating Labour Day. Hernández is one of the Cuban Five revolutionaries framed up and imprisoned in the United States for more than 14 years.

Paul Maunder, the curator of the Museum of Working-Class History where the exhibition will be displayed for a month, said the cartoons show that in spite of the oppressive conditions under which he is held, Hernández “retains his spirit and does so with humor and color.” The museum celebrates a historic strike in 1908 by miners at the long-closed Blackball coal mine. The exhibition “has been in Auckland, Christchurch and now Blackball—it just keeps getting bigger,” Maunder said to laughter from residents of the town of 300 people.

Also speaking were Tony Kokshoorn, mayor of the Grey District; Garth Elliott, an organizer for the Engineering, Printing, and Manufacturing Union; and Green Party Member of Parliament Kevin Hague. Inviting the 40 people in attendance to view the exhibition, Herrera described Hernández as “one of the best sons of Cuba.”

—PATRICK BROWN