Bulmaro “Boomer” Vicente strode to the podium at Anaheim City Hall last Tuesday to address the City Council and locked eyes with Councilmember Avelino Valencia. The two are running against each other for the open 68th Assembly District seat in the June 7 primary and are expected to advance to the general election in November.

Their signs are all over Anaheim and Santa Ana, where Valencia and Vicente are respectively from and where I’ve spent my entire life. But they had never run into each other on the campaign trail — until now.

The previous week, news broke that the FBI was looking into corruption in the city over the proposed sale of Angel Stadium and by a “cabal” that supposedly rules my hometown. The news made national headlines, and Mayor Harry Sidhu had resigned after Valencia and other councilmembers called for him to step down.

For Vicente, his opponent’s words weren’t good enough.

Reading from a prepared speech, he accused Valencia of being “funded by the same systems” that fouled Anaheim politics. “How can we trust that there’s no political favor with these hundreds of thousands of dollars?” Vicente asked, before asking Valencia to suspend his assembly campaign “for the love of Anaheim” and help “clean up the mess he stayed silent about until now.”

Valencia looked calmly ahead as residents in the packed council chambers applauded.

It was the latest volley in their fight for votes. For my vote — and my political soul too.

The sons of Mexican immigrants represent two sides of the same Latino political coin that the Democratic Party desperately needs to pocket to remain relevant.

Valencia is a 33-year-old millennial — a first-term Anaheim councilmember with roots in the Mexican states of Jalisco and Michoacán who has worked for the past six years as a staffer for retiring Assemblymember Tom Daly, a moderate Democrat.

Vicente is a 26-year-old zillennial — a first-time political candidate whose parents are from Oaxaca and who’s taking a leave of absence from his job as policy director at Chispa, a nonprofit on the vanguard of progressive policies in Santa Ana.

Valencia has raised nearly $326,000 through last week from an assortment of labor unions, Big Business and politicians on both sides of the proverbial aisle, including Speaker of the House Anthony Rendón and former Anaheim Councilmember Kris Murray.

Vicente has raised about $51,000, mostly from small donations. Two Republican candidates haven’t even raised enough money to report to the California secretary of state.

The face-off is drawing regionwide attention, both for what it says about an Orange County too many people still figure as a conservative wasteland, and for what it represents for Latino Democratic politics in Southern California and beyond.

Across the country, young progressive Latinos are mounting vocal challenges against established pols. In South Texas, longtime Rep. Henry Cuellar — the only Democrat in Congress to openly oppose abortion — is in a deadlock with 29-year-old Jessica Cisneros. In Los Angeles, Eunisses Hernandez has cast incumbent Gil Cedillo as little better than a vendido in her race against the L.A. councilmember. Michael Ortega is doing the same against Rep. Lou Correa, whose congressional district covers the cities that Valencia and Vicente would represent.

They offer something different: a fight for the future, by the future.

“I’m thrilled that O.C. has more Latinos on the ballot,” said Ada Briceño, chair of the Democratic Party of Orange County, which declined to endorse either candidate. “I’m excited that we will have a Latino representative, regardless of who wins.”

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