People associated with “Hawaii Five-0” on CBS love to throw around the word ohana, the Hawaiian term for extended, interdependent families. The show’s hero, Steve McGarrett, uses it to refer to his fictional team of crimefighters, but it always sounds a little awkward coming out of the mouth of Alex O’Loughlin, an earnest Australian actor who after seven seasons of playing McGarrett still seems like a tourist on vacation from a Hollywood action movie.

And ohana rang just as untrue this week when the executive producer and showrunner, Peter Lenkov, used it to refer to the show’s cast and crew — while trying to tamp down the controversy surrounding the departure of the show’s two Asian-American stars, Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park.

Mr. Kim (born in South Korea, raised in the United States) and Ms. Park (born in Los Angeles, raised in Canada, of Korean descent) are leaving before the show’s eighth season this fall. The circumstances are murky. Mr. Kim posted on Facebook: “The path to equality is rarely easy,” which could refer to billing or screen time, but the public discussion quickly focused on salary — Mr. Kim and Ms. Park make less per episode than the show’s headliners, Mr. O’Loughlin and Scott Caan — and CBS seemed to confirm that by saying it had offered “significant salary increases” to keep the two actors on board.