BARCELONA, Spain — “García,” my second name, is the most common surname in Spain. It is also the most common surname in Catalonia, in each and every one of its four provinces. Culturally, too, Catalonia and the rest of Spain are basically the same: We mostly watch the same TV shows, listen to the same music and enjoy the same movies.

Our shared history, too, is long and deep. Catalonia has been an integral part of Spain since the nation’s inception. To be sure, Spain is also a country with a complex history formed by the joining of different medieval kingdoms. The Catalans actively participated in that process, helping to draw up the first Spanish Constitution, the Cádiz one in 1812, which established Spain’s modern nationhood.

Before that, Catalonia, as a part of the Kingdom of Aragon, was an essential element in the political unity that began with the Catholic monarchs in the 15th century. Even the very beginnings of Catalonia, back in the ninth century, are linked to the creation by Charlemagne of the Spanish March, the Frankish empire’s defensive buffer against Moorish rule. The history of Catalonia itself is unintelligible outside the Spanish framework.

Image Dressed in traditional costume on Catalonia’s National Day in 2012, when thousands demonstrated in Barcelona in support of Catalonia’s independence. Credit... Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press

Spain’s complex history is reflected in language. While Catalan, Galician and Euskara (or Basque) are all languages spoken by the Spanish, Castilian Spanish is the mother tongue of most Spaniards, about 82 percent of the population, according to a 2012 Eurobarometer survey. Spanish is also the mother tongue for a majority of Catalans, about 55 percent.