Larry,
You said:
"We are a people without a homeland to call our own. We have to assimilate to survive in the US at the expense of losing our ancestral heritage."
I'm sorry but I don't personally agree with that. Regardless of where my ancestors came from or how they got here, this (The United States of America) is my homeland.
I do have african ancestry but it is not my sole ancestry and I cannot and will not call myself a true African without a homeland because I'm not. I have full-blooded African friends who have children here and I consider their children to be African-American, but I and my family are Black and we are full-blooded Americans.
Josie