All Aunt Hagar's Children 1

I have reached to the chapter "A Poor Guatemalan Dreams of a Downtown in Peru" of Jones' novel, "All Aunt Hagar's Children." So far, each chapter seems to be about a different person and I can't really connect the people together at all. The only thing I think might be a connection is the apartment some of the characters live in in Washington, D.C. However, I can't tell if they are living in this apartment building at the same time, or if some events happened much earlier than others. The book is written in third-person and seems to be a free indirect discourse, where the narrator can tell the inner feelings of a few characters in each chapter, but mostly only one character so it could also be classified as a limited omniscient.
All of the stories so far seem to deal with a lot of loss in the characters' lives. The first tells a somewhat cold story about a husband and wife losing thier love for one another rather suddenly after they take in a baby that isn't thiers. Another chapter is about another couple sadly falling apart due to emotional distance and untruthfulness. In another is a beautiful yet very sad death of a woman that a man had once loved, so he tries to make her look beautiful and innocent in her death. In each chapter so far I have noticed this theme of loss. There is also a sense that the characters are getting over thier loss and moving on. For example, Ruth takes the baby back to Virginia I believe and lives with her family again. But Aubrey seems to still be suffering greatly. In "Resurrecting Methuselah," Anita seems to have gotten over her husband and leaves the hospital not caring much, but her husband seems hurt that he has almost lost his life and he has no family to lean on anymore.
I'm really not sure what to make of this book right now. I like it, but I am very confused as to its underlying meaning or themes, other than loss. I also can't see a huge connection to it's being an "African American" novel. The characters might be African American, but I don't see the same oral traditions and diasporic, home-searching themes as the two previous novels. These characters seem to be at home in Washington, D.C. Ruth didn't feel at home there, but she went back to her home. If anyone reads this and has something to add to what makes this novel African American, please comment!