Dina Eastwood was born in Castro Valley, California the daughter of Michael Ruiz, a Math Teacher at Mission San Jose High School and Wrestling Coach, who Spanish had adopted/Puerto Rican couple as an infant in the Kalihi neighborhood of Honolulu.
Michael Ruiz’s biological mother, Lilian, was Hawaiian and Japanese; his birth father, Marcus Grant, was African-American and Native Hawaiian. Her mother was Mary Lou Ruiz and is of German, Irish and English descent.
Michael and Mary were 19 and 21 years old when they had Dina. Dina grew up in Fremont, California, with her father teaching school in Fresno.
Eastwood joined The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts Board of Trustees and is a past chair. She has been a regular contributor to Carmel magazine since 2010, and a non-fiction editor to the literary journal Reed Magazine.