Kimiko Glenn is of Japanese, Scottish, Irish, and German heritage. In an interview with Cosmopolitan, Glenn discussed her role as Brook on Orange Is the New Black. "I think the original vision of the character was a blonde girl, and then they opened it up to Indian, and then it kind of landed on me somehow."
She expanded, "What I love about playing Brook is the fact that this is not an Asian stereotype. This is not like any character I've gone in for. I go in for a lot of the typical things you would think: the silly sidekick, the smart one, stuff like that. It is something I think about all the time. It's a conversation I ask my agents; I ask my managers. It's always a conversation because I do want to be playing parts that are human parts. And I love that they say that I'm Asian American. I'm not 'full Asian.' I think Asians, in general, are underrepresented." Her statement greatly left netizens in awe as she was able to perfectly portray the struggles of Asians in western media.