2 Asian-American Actors Leave ‘Hawaii Five-0’ Amid Reports of Unequal Pay<br />By JOHN KOBLINJULY 6, 2017<br />CBS has been on the defensive this week as it deals with a simmering controversy surrounding<br />the departures of two Asian-American actors from its police procedural show “Hawaii Five-0.”<br />The two stars, Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park, decided to leave the show after they were unable to agree to terms on new contracts — prompting speculation<br />that they left because they would not be earning as much as their white co-stars.<br />“Unfortunately, the racial hierarchy established in the original 1968-1980 series remained intact in the 2010 reboot: Two white stars on top, two Asian/Pacific Islander stars on bottom,” said Guy Aoki,<br />the founding president of the Media Action Network for Asian-Americans, who also criticized the network for not including more actors of Asian or Pacific Islander descent in the show’s cast.<br />George Takei, an actor of Japanese descent who has made appearances on both the revived “Hawaii Five-0” and the original series, noted<br />that Hawaii is home to a large Asian-American population and called CBS’s inability to get a deal done with the two actors “sad.”<br />“It’s very unfortunate that CBS couldn’t recognize their value to the show that’s set in Hawaii,” he said in a telephone interview<br />Mr. Kim stopped short of saying that unequal pay had been the reason for his departure,<br />but he suggested as much in the post, writing, “The path to equality is rarely easy.”<br />In a statement shortly afterward, CBS said that both cast members “have been important<br />and valued members” of the show and said that they had been offered hefty raises.
