Tanya Sloan

Tanya Sloan, originally named Kenya Sloan, is a fictional character and hero in the Power Rangers universe, appearing in the television series Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers, Power Rangers Zeo and Power Rangers Turbo. She is played by Nakia Burrise and is introduced as living with an African tribe while being the daughter of African Americanexplorers. She is also shown to celebrate Kwanzaa in the 1996 holiday season.[1] She is the first Yellow Ranger with a female Sentai counterpart and, therefore, also the first to wear a skirt as part of her uniform. She is the second Yellow Ranger of African descent after Aisha Campbell from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

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Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers[edit]
When Master Vile reversed time and turned the Power Rangers into children, five of them were sent through time to collect the fragments of the Zeo Crystal. The then-current Yellow Ranger, Aisha Campbell, traveled to Africa, where she encountered the young Tanya Sloan, who saved her from a lion.[2] Though she found her Zeo subcrystal, Aisha wished to stay in Africa to help save the local animals from a plague, so Tanya agreed to return to Angel Grove with the subcrystal in her place. When the five Zeo subcrystals were finally reunited, and Master Vile's tampering with time was undone, Tanya became a teenager along with the other Rangers.[3]

Power Rangers Zeo[edit]
Tanya Sloan as Zeo Ranger II Yellow

Being the most inexperienced of the group, she offered to pass the powers from Aisha's subcrystal over to Billy Cranston; however, he declined and Tanya became Zeo Ranger II.[4] Tanya began her tour of duty as the newest member of the Power Rangers team while having to cope with the Machine Empireinvasion as well as having her world turned upside down by entering Angel Grove as an orphan. Luckily, Tanya adapted quickly to her new lifestyle and began to learn martial arts from Tommy Oliver and Adam Park.[5][6] To help her cope with her temporal displacement, Tanya lived with Zeo Ranger I Katherine Hillard, who also helped Tanya enroll at Angel Grove High School.[7]

Tanya became interested in baseball player Shawn, who attempted to cheat on an algebra test before Tanya convinced him otherwise.[8] However, the two eventually had a falling out leading Shawn to break up with Tanya, as she excelled at baseball and joined the Angel Grove High team as a pitcher.[9] Shawn later showed jealousy at Tanya's friendship with Adam, but the two patched things up and remained friends.[10] Tanya was also an excellent singer, and a music video that she created caught the eye of a talent scout, who offered her a recording contract. Tanya had to decline at the time, feeling that her Ranger duties were more important.[11] Tommy later asked for Tanya's assistance as a vocal coach, at which point both were put under a spell by Queen Machina that forced the two to sing at all times like an opera singers.[12]

It was eventually revealed that her real parents had been African American explorers, who had left her in Africa while they went searching for the "Lost Tiki of Auric" on the fabled Mysterio Island. After receiving a letter from her old tribe and Aisha, she managed to find and rescue them. She learned that the "Lost Tiki" was in fact the form of the ancient hero, Auric the Conqueror, whose care she placed in the hands of Jason Lee Scott, who was serving as the Gold Zeo Ranger at the time.[13]

Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie[edit]
When the evil Space Pirate Divatox threatens to raise a powerful monster named Maligore to marry her, Tanya, along with the other rangers, accept new Turbo powers and becomes the Yellow Turbo Ranger, and gains the Dune Star Turbozord.

Power Rangers Turbo[edit]
Tanya continued to fight against Divatox. She took up an internship, working as a DJ at a radio station, and managed to warn the other Rangers to one of Divatox's detonators over the airwaves.[14] She also supported Katherine when she felt self-conscious about her weight and when she was conflicted over attending a dance school; Tanya noted at the time that her own singing career was something that she could always pursue after leaving her tenure as a Power Ranger.[15] She and the other Ranger veterans later passed on their powers to worthy successors, and Tanya selected as her replacement the Angel Grove cheerleader, Ashley Hammond, to continue on as the Yellow Turbo Ranger.[16]