Kookhi Bae Kim learned the importance of voting the hard way -- by getting a scolding from her mother.
"I came home from school, and it was election day. My mom asked me if I had voted," recalled the 62-year-old La Canada Flintridge resident, who was a college student in Seoul at the time.
When Kim, whose father had fought for Korean independence from Japan, sheepishly admitted she hadn't, her mother delivered some advice she never forgot.
"You need to go and vote. If you don't vote, you don't have the right to criticize," her mother had said.
"She pushed me out of the house and told me: 'You still have 10 or 20 minutes,' " said Kim, who immigrated to the United States 36 years ago. "Since then, I have never missed an election."
During the last three years, she has taken her mother's admonition a step further by volunteering as a bilingual poll worker. Officials say more people like her are needed throughout much of the Southland, even as next Tuesday's election looms.
"It's our biggest issue, always, trying to recruit bilingual poll workers," said Registrar-Recorder Conny McCormack, Los Angeles County's top elections official.
The county is required by federal voting law to provide bilingual help in more languages -- six -- than any county in the nation, said David Becker, a Washington, D.C.-based voting rights attorney who tracks election trends. "I'm not aware of any other county-type jurisdiction that has [to offer] more than three or four languages."
This week, several Southern California counties were making last-minute appeals for polling place translators. It has become an election time ritual.
Los Angeles County has recruited nearly all of the 2,200 translators that will be deployed in next Tuesday's election -- about one-fifth of the total poll worker force.
But an additional 200 are being sought as a cushion for last-minute dropouts.
Korean and Vietnamese speakers are especially needed, in addition to those who speak Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog and Japanese.
As of Friday, San Bernardino County still needed 50 Spanish speakers. Orange County was looking for a handful of people fluent in Vietnamese, and Ventura County needs a few more Spanish speakers for the Simi Valley and Moorpark areas. Riverside County has met its quota, said Registrar Barbara Dunmore.
Orange County must offer bilingual assistance in four languages (Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese and Korean); Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino counties are required to translate only one -- Spanish.
