add up to more than mere discomfiture, unpleasantness, harassment, or unfair treatment”). While the petitioner’s testimony indicates that she received threats, there is no evidence either that these threats materialized or that the petitioner herself was placed in harm’s way. We have said before, and today reaffirm, that “hollow threats, ... without more, certainly do not compel a finding of past persecution.” Ang v. Gonzales, 430 F.3d 50, 56 (1st Cir.2005). To cinch matters, the petitioner— apart from conjecture — never tied her first husband’s murder to her own persecution. An alien who claims that harm to a relative is evidence that she herself has been persecuted must present more than gossamer strands of speculation and surmise. See Ruiz v. Mukasey, 526 F.3d 31, 37 (1st Cir.2008) (<HOLDING>). That is particularly true where, as here, the
holding that the board must refrain from reading particular phrases in isolation   holding that the record did not compel a finding of persecution where an alien was detained for five or six days holding that where the record suggests that the negative experiences of a petitioner and her family exist in isolation from each other a finding of persecution is not warranted holding that absent a pattern of persecution linked to the applicant persecution of family members is insufficient to demonstrate a wellfounded fear of persecution holding that a court should consider a defendants anticompetitive conduct as a whole rather than considering each aspect in isolation