“Immigration: Rights and Wrongs,” a new course that will be offered only once, will place itself in the eye of an immigration storm that recently sparked a whirlwind of debate and demonstrations nationwide.

“Immigration is one of the great challenges of ethnicity, race, class and nationality of our times,” said Professor Lawrence Bobo, director of the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CCSRE). “It is imperative that the Stanford community be made aware of all that surrounds the new politics of immigration.”

In the backdrop of a hot election season and debate over controversial legislation, members of CCSRE felt compelled to bring immigration to the forefront of campus-wide discourse, Bobo said. With the assistance of Comparative Literature Prof. David Polumbo-Liu and Psychology Prof. Hazel Markus, the idea for this course came into fruition. Organizers will launch its kick-off event tonight with a screening of the documentary film “Crossing Arizona.”

“Few experiences can bring home the meaning of the clash at the border [more] than this film,” Bobo said.

Following the screening, students will have a chance to hear from and talk with the two filmmakers behind this documentary.

“In Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity [CSRE], we’re generally very interested in having diversity in terms of perspective but also in terms of the scholars and the artists and scientists who are producing the products that we’re studying,” Markus said. “We think that makes a difference [in] what questions you ask and what contexts you have.”

Four additional sessions will showcase leading Stanford faculty and other experts in the field of immigration, including Princeton Sociology Prof. Alejandro Portes and UC Berkeley Economics Prof. David Card. These four panels will provide students with a forum to delve deeper into the historical, cultural, legal, economic and racial roots of current immigration discourse. Experts will also discuss the socioeconomic pros and cons of current policy and alternative proposals.

Stanford alumnus Orlando Lara will also launch “Sed: A Trail of Thirst,” a concurrent art exhibit that integrates themes featured in and inspired by this course.

Available for one or three units of credit/no credit, students who opt to take this course for three units rather than one are required to write a 10-page paper and attend a discussion section, where they will use panelist commentary and outside readings as a springboard for dialogue.

Estella Cisneros, a senior and second-generation immigrant, was inspired to enroll as a student assistant for the course because of her personal and academic ties to the immigration debate.

“The issues surrounding the debate cannot help but strike me as relevant and personal,” Cisneros said. “The way people are thinking about the debate is wrong. It is not about breaking the law but about why people are breaking the law.”

Junior Tony Dang, who spent last year abroad in Paris, felt motivated to enroll in the course after he witnessed firsthand the issue’s international relevance.

“I saw the ongoing immigration and integration debates occurring in France,” said Dang. “Although it was quite different from the U.S. case in a lot of ways, the media used many of the same rhetorical strategies, which piqued my interest in the issue.”

Markus hopes that students who take this course will be better prepared to navigate the complexities of racially charged issues like immigration.

“This is a really complicated issue and students need to have more information before they’re prepared to judge,” Markus said. “We’re hoping to give the whole picture on immigration.”