Story highlights Daniel Dae Kim's production company, 3AD, is producing ABC's "The Good Doctor"

Jeff Yang: For Asian actors, more success comes when they step behind the camera and help to create their own projects

Jeff Yang is a frequent contributor to CNN Opinion, a featured writer for Quartz and other publications and the cohost of the podcast They Call Us Bruce. He co-authored Jackie Chan's bestselling autobiography, "I Am Jackie Chan" and is the editor of three graphic novels: "Secret Identities," "Shattered" and the forthcoming "New Frontiers." The opinions expressed here are his own.

(CNN) It's been a little more than a week since word leaked that Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park were leaving CBS's resilient hit "Hawaii Five-0," and pieces of the story behind the story have begun to fall into place. The picture that's emerging isn't pretty.

As Kim himself confirmed in a Facebook post to his fans, the duo left because their request to be paid the same as their white co-stars, Alex O'Loughlin and Scott Caan, was rejected. The gap in what they were asking for and what CBS was willing to offer was tiny — reportedly a difference of as little as $5,000 per episode , which for the most-watched network in America is an amount that could basically be found under sofa cushions in their corporate offices.

Jeff Yang

Although, according to "Hawaii Five-0" showrunner Peter Lenkov, the raise in CBS's final offer to Kim and Park was "generous," money in Hollywood isn't just about money. It also reflects respect for an artist's importance to a show's success. And that aspect of the negotiations clearly served as the sticking point for Kim and Park, the two prominent Asian American faces of a show whose very identity is defined by its Asian and Pacific Islander-majority locale.

Ultimately, the refusal to pay Kim and Park on matching terms with O'Loughlin and Caan was CBS's formal declaration that they were determined to protect a disparity that has been a sore point since the show's premiere: The assertion that O'Loughlin and Caan are "Hawaii Five-0" "stars," and Kim and Park are merely "co-leads."

It's hard to avoid concluding that this is a direct reflection of Hollywood's continuing legacy as a system where white actors and male actors are seen as more valuable than nonwhite and female ones, simply by accident of melanin and genitalia.