In our debut season, Perspectives On dives into the centuries-old — and still fiercely alive — debate over Catalan independence. More than just a political question, the Catalan movement is a deep well of identity, memory, resistance, and division.

Catalonia, a region in northeastern Spain with its own language, culture, and history of autonomy, has long wrestled with its relationship to the Spanish state. From the suppression of Catalan identity under Franco’s dictatorship to the banned 2017 referendum that made headlines worldwide, the independence question has become a fault line that cuts through families, institutions, and even the European Union.